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Jack West

A prolific musician, composer and bandleader, Jack West is a singular guitarist with an immediately recognizable sound. His early career saw the release six albums that received widespread critical acclaim, and included steady performances at leading festivals and venues including SXSW, Atlanta Jazz Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, and The Freight in Berkeley. In parallel with his music career, West is also an inventor and has patented various new musical instruments and solar technologies, pursuits that have born impressive fruit. Jack has recently ramped up his musical output with multiple projects, including two new albums and supporting tour dates in early 2026.

Characterized by uncommon rhythmic dexterity, exploratory slide guitar work and a uniquely grooving, percussive acoustic style, West’s playing was described by The Oakland Tribune as sounding “like something never heard before... nothing short of astounding.” Rather than a tributary to the mighty river of jazz, it might be more accurate to say West’s music represents a new stream of American acoustic music, an improvisation-laced sound influenced by jazz, but equally engaged with rock, folk, and funk. In many ways he was an early exemplar of the acoustic guitar virtuosi who followed in the percussive footsteps of Michael Hedges (1953 –1997), a world that’s expanded in recent years with YouTube sensations like Marcin, Alexandr Misko, and Luka Stricognoli.

With his stunning new acoustic guitar duo album, West offers fans of acoustic guitar virtuosity a jaw-dropping sojourn. Guitars On Life presents a captivating collection of steel string duets with fellow guitar explorer Walter Strauss, best known for his extensive work with Malian artists (particularly kora master Sidiki Diabaté and ngoni innovator Mamadou Sidibe). With West supplying the bass, chords, and percussion lines of an entire rhythm section, his bass notes popping due to a thumb pick of his own invention, Strauss overlays expertly filigreed melodies. The result is a surprisingly large, full band sound emanating from just two acoustic guitars. Guitars On Life has already garnered many stellar reviews.

The best work from West's previous six albums has been selected, remixed, and remastered for release as the highly acclaimed double album Essential Curvature on Ota Records. West's recordings have received national recognition for their exceptional quality as independent productions. As We Know It was chosen over thousands of entries as winner of the Acoustic Guitar Magazine Self-Released CD Award for its "superb quality and originality."

A mostly self-taught musician, West grew up in Savannah, Georgia and moved to Northern California to attend Humboldt State University. After 7 years playing mostly original rock, blues, and Afropop, he decided to work in an acoustic vein. In many ways, rhythm is the key to West's music. No one who hears his emotionally nuanced tune "Smile," a love song for his wife Christina, could mistake him for a musician averse to lyricism, but it's the sense of movement in his music that makes the first and deepest impression. "For me music is a rhythmic phenomenon, much more than it is a harmonic phenomenon," West says.

Jack West/Walter Strauss: Guitars on Life

Read "Guitars on Life" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
February 9, 2026

Emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s, acoustic guitarist Jack West forged a new style on 6-and 8-string instruments that integrates percussive use of the strings and guitar body with melody and harmony. Spicing his tunes with repeated harmonics and slide flourishes and incorporating influences from jazz, folk, rock and Americana music, West has released several albums, both solo and with his group Jack West & Curvature in which his guitar was complemented by percussion, saxophone, cello, ...

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Album Review

Jack West & Curvature: Big Ideas

Read "Big Ideas" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 1, 2001

8-string acoustic guitarist Jack West melds organically induced homespun themes with blues and jazz overtones on his fifth release, titled Big Ideas. Here, “Jack West and Curvature” renders subtle intimacy along with pumping beats and atmospheric propositions as the guitarist makes every note count whether pursuing bluesy bottleneck slide choruses or jazzy lines amid enticing harmonic relationships with cellist Mark Summer and marimba performer Joel Davel. Drummer Scott Amendola, primarily known for his ongoing affiliation with guitarist Charlie Hunter, rounds ...

Recording

Composer, Guitarist, and Inventor Jack West Releases 'Guitars On Life,' An Acoustic Guitar Duo Album Featuring West and Guitarist Walter Strauss

Source: DL Media
February 8, 2026

West Also Releases Essential Curvature, a Double-LP Compilation of Recordings Made with His Group Curvature Between 1996 and 2003 Both Albums are Available on Vinyl and Digital Platforms via Otá Records Composer, guitarist, and inventor Jack West will release two albums on Otá Records (the label behind most of Omar Sosa’s recordings). The first, Guitars On Life, is a new album of percussive acoustic guitar music featuring West and guitarist Walter Strauss performing mostly live in the studio as a ...
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"Guitars on Life freshly enters the dusty annals of acoustic jazz guitar with a brave, new chapter in using musical forms, advanced harmonic interplay, and bracingly creative compositions" and "Essential Curvature [is] a musical revelation in 2026 that will hopefully initiate further discussion of West and Curvature- Thom Jurek, allmusic.com "[Big Ideas is] a remarkable outing of cool curves, gently sloping musical parabolas, and wondorous bends in compositional structure

"Guitars on Life freshly enters the dusty annals of acoustic jazz guitar with a brave, new chapter in using musical forms, advanced harmonic interplay, and bracingly creative compositions" and "Essential Curvature [is] a musical revelation in 2026 that will hopefully initiate further discussion of West and Curvature- Thom Jurek, allmusic.com "[Big Ideas is] a remarkable outing of cool curves, gently sloping musical parabolas, and wondorous bends in compositional structure. With rhythm at the fore West offers unusual sound colors, fluid slide work, and percussive attack" - Down Beat "Stunning...one of the more interesting releases of the new year" - JazzWest "Jack West is not only a fine musician, but he has an original approach and sounds like no one else. To my mind, that is one of the most important qualities that a musician can possess." - Lee Townsend “brilliant original compositions” (Contra Costa Times) “sounds like something never heard before” (Oakland Tribune) “astounding rhythmic dexterity and unorthodox technique” (SJ Mercury News “immediately accessible, owing to West's beguiling melodic sensibility and his absorbing percussive attack” (SF Bay Guardian) “tight arrangements, musical use of odd-time signatures and polyrhythms, and engaging, intricate melodies" (Electronic Musician) "A whole new sub-genre of jazz" - National Public Radio, Perspectives in Jazz "Hauntingly beautiful" - East Bay Express "The interplay [between West and marimbist Joel Davel] is the kind of thing that makes listeners go gaga!" - SF Weekly "Curvature explores an original, rhythmically astute amalgam of blues, jazz, funk, and folk. Although complex in terms of time signatures and improvisations, Curvature's music is immediately accessible, owing to West's beguiling melodic sensibility and his absorbing percussive attack." - SF Bay Guardian "Exploring uncharted territory...uncannily familiar and yet completely fresh" - Andrew Gilbert, Jazz Critic "Organically induced homespun themes...subtle intimacy along with pumping beats and atmospheric propositions...enticing harmonic relationships...the guitarist makes every note count. The artist's memorable compositions and glimmering technique bespeaks a fertile imagination. Recommended!" - AllAboutJazz.com "Obsessed with rhythm...[West] pushes his guitar techniques to the limit" - Metro Santa Cruz "A restlessly creative musician...dazzling combination of bluesy slide work, finger picking, and unorthodox percussive techniques" - Jazz Perspectives, Reese Erlich "Subtle, sensuous, accomplished, and mature. West wants and gets a group sound/identity. The music is well-contructed and smartly played. If you like percussive music that does not skimp on melody, check out Jack West & Curvature." - Cadence Magazine "This tune ["Something About the Dream"] is taking me to another place..." - Chris Cortez, KCSM, Jazz 91.1 FM "Rooted in jazz and blues...it's also highly accessible...extremely melodic and harmonically in..." - Oakland Tribune "Curvature [is] a band with a distinctive sound that flows from it's unusual instrumentation...[West has] managed to find musicians endowed with a sense of syncopation as articulate as his own." - Contra Costa Times "The full house at Yoshi's last Monday night [1/15/01] ventured out to hear West's idiosyncratic approach to composition and improvisation studious melodic and harmonic complexity, bouyed by infectious rhythmic verve." - Express "In simple words, it [Big Ideas] is a great album!" - WartaJazz, Indonesia "Excellent production values and a virtuosic approach to original acoustic jazz ... Jack West & Curvature create a groove and a forum for improvisation rarely found in acoustic music...Winner of the 2000 Homegrown CD Award " - Acoustic Guitar Magazine "Gorgeous, tightly structured compositions built on shifting rhythmic patterns ... extraordinary." - East Bay Express "That deceptively simple phrase 'progressive acoustic jazz' belies the rich complexity of composition, technique and improvisation that West and his cohorts in Curvature bring to the stage. West brings together elements of folk, blues and jazz with a heavy emphasis on melody and percussive guitar technique. The result is vibrant, organic sounding jazz that...sounds like something never heard before...nothing short of astounding." - Oakland Tribune "A fertile blend of acoustic blues, progressive jazz, and an international folk music feel, Curvature's music bristles with instrumental virtuosity and a freewheeling improvisational spirit." - SF Bay Guardian "Original, consistently recognizable sound...tight arrangements, musical use of odd-time signatures and polyrhythms, and engaging, intricate melodies..." - Electronic Musician

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