Gary Zellerbach

Gary Zellerbach is a popular Bay Area guitarist and proud fifth generation native San Franciscan. He received his first guitar on his 13th birthday and has been playing ever since. While in high school, Gary studied jazz guitar with noted local instructor Dave Smith and played in numerous blues and rock bands around San Francisco. Next stop was college near Boston, where Gary continued his jazz guitar studies with Andy Caponigro and famed jazz guitarist and educator Mick Goodrick. Gary had some great musicians as classmates, including pianist George Kahn and bassist/music editor Carl Sealove. With local area musicians, Gary formed a progressive jazz-fusion group called Spectrum, managed by Ted Kurland (who went on to become the top talent agent in all of jazz!). Spectrum played around the Northeast, including opening concerts and club dates for Gary Burton and Keith Jarrett. Next stop was Los Angeles, where Gary played popular music (mostly rock and R&B) to survive, while continuing to study jazz as much as possible. He played in the advanced jazz band at Dick Grove School of Music and took seminars with many top LA session players, such as Joe Diorio and Tommy ("I can sight read anything") Tedesco. A particular highlight at that time was attending a three day guitar workshop with Pat Martino at the Guitar Institute of Technology (now the Musicians Institute). One of Gary's first LA gigs was lead guitarist for Marvin Gaye's younger brother Frankie. After that, he appeared on American Bandstand and toured the US with singer/song-writer Parker McGee, opening up large concert venues for performers such as Dolly Parton and Billy Joel. Returning to LA, Gary reunited with old buddies George Michalski and Carl Sealove to form the classic rock band Michalski & Oosterveen ("M&O"), which was "discovered" by movie producer (and Barbara Streisand's boyfriend at the time) Jon Peters. Peters immediately signed the band to a two album deal with Columbia Records and had them perform the song "Burn" on the movie Eyes of Laura Mars. (Through this connection, they had the great fortune to meet and record with Streisand, and she went on to record several of Michalski's songs, including the title track for The Main Event and the tune A Man I Loved.) Unfortunately, as with many Hollywood tales, things didn't end well for M&O, and Gary moved back to San Francisco, putting his musical career on hold for a number of years.

Around 2005, Gary joined Clark Suprynowicz's Berkeley Jazz Workshop, a great place to meet talented musicians (and to play and study jazz). Since then, he's built a large network of musicians he works with regularly and is happy to report his talents are in ever-increasing demand. Gary performs and records regularly around the Bay Area with musicians including Al Lazard, Gerald Beckett, Steve McQuarry, Michael Gold, Scott Silverberg and The Westside Jazz Club, vocalists Laura Wiley and Beth Marlin, and many more. Some of the places played include premier jazz venues such as Yoshi's San Francisco, the SFJAZZ Center, the Fillmore Jazz Festival, People in Plazas, Club Deluxe, and dozens more restaurants, clubs, and private events.