About Jack DeSalvo
JACK DeSALVO, born in New York City, developed his extraordinary guitar style from a deep immersion into modern jazz, classical guitar and his own prolific compositional output. He has been compared to artists as diverse as Ralph Towner and John McLaughlin and has studied guitar with Bill Connors and Leonid Bolotine, composition with Ariada Mikéshina (herself a student of Richard Strauss) and at Berklee College of Music as well as with composer and theorist George Russell. DeSalvo performs mainly with his own trio and quartet and the group Quintrepid, which includes Jack on guitar, Matt Lambiase on flugelhorn, Chris Forbes on piano, double-bassist Dmitry Ishenko and drummer Tom Cabrera. All About Jazz calls Quintrepid “ a swinging collective with a fresh sound”.
His duet album Lumens with German/Swiss saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen received praise on both sides of the Atlantic, “I have been completely bowled over by this album since it arrived for review a few weeks ago.” – Nick Lea, Jazz Views, “Nicole Johänntgen and Jack DeSalvo pulled out all the stops at the recording session for “Lumens”. Guitar and saxophone play almost hands-free with the themes and find the perfect balance in terms of sound.” – Georg Wassmuth, SWR2, “(DeSalvo’s) conception is pure jazz, comping, accenting and prodding Johänntgen’s watery lines on alto and soprano.” – Downbeat
Hailed in THE WIRE magazine as “masterful”, Jack DeSalvo has performed on over 100 albums with over 30 under his name. He is featured on numerous classic jazz albums, including Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Red Warrior, Spontaneous Combustion by the group D3, Transparencies with Karl Berger, and Anthony Cox, and Liquide Stones in duo with Arthur Lipner. He has performed worldwide, including at jazz festivals and clubs in Europe.
“When you listen to Jack DeSalvo, it’s immediately apparent that he has an enormous musical vocabulary. Renaissance classical, garage rock, straight-ahead jazz, downtown skronk and traditional mandolin melodies are all part of his musical DNA. But when you hear DeSalvo improvise on classical guitar, you’re hearing the music of that precise moment. He has many influences (and there are as many poets, philosophers, and thinkers as there are musicians)…” – Mitch Goldman, WKCR
Jack DeSalvo is a founder of, and producer for Unseen Rain Records and also a multi-instrumentalist playing (besides classical, steel-string, 12-string and electric guitars) cello, mandolin, banjo, keyboards, etc.
Extended Bio
JACK DeSALVO is a jazz and classical guitarist, composer, multi-instrumenalist (besides guitar he also performs on cello, mandolin, mandola, banjo and piano) record producer and educator.
Hailed in THE WIRE magazine as “masterful”, Jack DeSalvo has performed on over 100 albums with nearly 30 under his own name. Besides his releases on Unseen Rain Records, he is featured on numerous classic new jazz albums, including Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Red Warrior, Spontaneous Combustion by the group D3, Transparencies with Karl Berger and Anthony Cox and Liquide Stones in duo with Arthur Lipner. He currently performs with several quartets and trios as well as solo under his own name, with the bands Quintrepid and Sumari, in bands led Chris Kelsey, Julie Lyon and others, in Matt Lavelle’s 12 Houses Orchestra and in duos with Nicole Johänntgen, Tom Cabrera and Dom Minasi. He has performed worldwide, including at jazz festivals and clubs in Europe.
“When you listen to Jack DeSalvo, it’s immediately apparent that he has an enormous musical vocabulary. Renaissance classical, garage rock, straight ahead jazz, downtown skronk and traditional mandolin melodies are all part of his musical DNA. But when you hear DeSalvo improvise on classical guitar, you’re hearing music of that precise moment. He has many influences (and there are as many poets, philosophers and thinkers as there are musicians)…” – Mitch Goldman, WKCR
Jack began guitar lessons at age eight. By his early teens he was rehearsing and performing with local rock groups. The first transformation from interest in pop music to other forms occurred when he bought an LP based on its cover when he was 11. The record, already a classic by that time, was Fresh Cream. Hearing the track Sleepy Time Time inspired his early research into the Blues, including BB King’s Live at the Regal and recordings by Albert King and others. By 15 DeSalvo had picked up harmonica and mandolin and started to use a bottle-neck slide after seeing Johnny Winter and Duane Allman perform.
While trying to commandeer his teen-aged garage band’s repertoire to more blues oriented material, his friend Steve Aprahamian (now an eminent composer) played him Birds of Fire by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. This changed everything. Exposure followed to the music of Coltrane, Miles and early jazz. DeSalvo’s sketching and painting, which were the center of his activities from early childhood began taking a back seat to music, though he always felt they emanated from the same impulse.
Jack began studying classical guitar with his jazz teacher Al Faraldi. Al sent Jack to NYC to his teacher, Leonid Bolotine. A violinist with Toscanini’s NBC Orchestra, Bolotine had initiated the guitar department at Mannes College of Music and established the American Institute of the Guitar. At Bolotine’s urging, DeSalvo began to study theory and harmony and eventually composition with Ariada Mikéshina, who was formerly a student of Richard Strauss.
During his classical studies Jack continued to pursue jazz and improvisation, playing in ensembles with drummer and eventual recording engineer Tom Tedesco and the late Chapman Stick innovator Frank Jolliffe. Forming a group with Tedesco, trumpeter Charlie Monte and bassist Joe Buonomo, DeSalvo performed at clubs in NYC and New Jersey playing a repertoire that ranged from old standards to Wayne Shorter tunes and free improvisation.
DeSalvo accepted into Juilliard’s composition department but instead went to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. He also studied George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept. It was at this time that he began his process of waking up every morning and writing music, encouraged by poet William Stafford’s practice of writing a poem every day. Though Jack has written long forms, symphonic works and chamber music, it is music written for small jazz bands that became the core of his writing. He feels these pieces, accessible to musicians through the jazz chart, are analogous to free-verse poetry, another art-form that has enriched DeSalvo’s sensibilities and informs his work.
Moving to lower Manhattan to immerse himself in the downtown music scene, his apartment was at the corner of Mott St. and Prince St. which was was then a nexus for a number of musical genres and related arts, down the block from the original Knitting Factory, around the corner from Lunch for Your Ears and near Todd’s Copy Shop-Gallery. It was in this milieu that DeSalvo developed his writing, which he termed Composing for Improvisers, while continuing to work on himself as an improviser.
He kept his jazz guitar and classical guitar techniques separate until he started to study with Bill Connors, the first guitarist with Return To Forever who had already recorded his landmark ECM recordings. Connors encouraged DeSalvo to break the dichotomy between plectrum-oriented jazz playing and right-hand classical technique. This was liberating and eventually led to Jack’s pianistic independence of moving voices while developing a flamenco-like fluidity with his right-hand fingers to match the plectrum technique he developed early on.
DeSalvo’s performances at this time were centered on his own compositions. and he performed concerts at Inroads, the Open Center and played at clubs including Seventh Avenue South and the Inner Circle. He made the first recording of his own music, Moments Of, with a group consisting of himself on guitar, Rick Jesse on tenor saxophone, Scott Butterfield on bass and Chris Braun on drums.
With drummer Chris Braun and bass player Mike Bocchicchio, both a few years his senior, he began regular extended sessions playing mostly jazz standards, music by Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and some of Chris Braun’s music. It was during this period and because of these two masterful players, Bocchcchio and Braun, that DeSalvo learned the meaning of swing and its powerful essence at the heart of jazz. They made a single recording of Braun’s music, engineered by Tom Tedesco, pre-Tedesco studio.
The next project, produced by the late David Baker was DeSalvo’s album Falls Home with Allen Farnham on piano, Drew Gress on bass and Tom Tedesco on drums, featuring DeSalvo’s compositions with quartet performances and solo guitar pieces.
Throughout DeSalvo’s early NYC experience he played numerous gigs with bass player Tony DeCicco whom he had known at Berklee. At one performance in a gallery on the Lower East Side they played in an ensemble that included saxophonist and composer Trish Burgess, who introduced them to her husband Bruce Ditmas. Tony and Jack knew who Ditmas was – a veteran of the Gil Evans Orchestra and The Paul Bley Quartet. A session was set up. Not a word was said and the playing commenced. It became obvious that the trio could improvise full pieces with a shared sense of compositional structure and yet with a feeling of total abandon. The result was such that they immediately became a band which was known from then on as D3.
D3 hit the downtown scene with their powerful interplay, performing regularly at the Knitting Factory and First on First. A recording was made at Joe Pedoto’s Omni-Mix Studio. Bassist Melvin Gibbs, who knew that Ronald Shannon Jackson was looking for a guitar player for his band The Decoding Society, played the recording for Jackson who then hired DeSalvo.
Several European and American tours with Ronald Shannon Jackson followed with what was to be the horn-less version of the Decoding Society, a band that included bassists Ramon Pooser and Conrad Mathieu and guitarists DeSalvo and the late Jef Lee Johnson. While in Europe DeSalvo met and played with many European and American musicians including Peter Brötzmann in Wuppertal and with Miles’ then current band at Club Rémont in Warsaw.
DeSalvo is featured on Jackson’s legendary recording Red Warrior (Knit Classics KCR-3032/orig. Axiom) with Jack playing electric and slide guitar as well as playing mandolin on the bonus track Harmolodic Christmas.
Soon after came Transparencies (Bellaphon CDLR-45057) with Karl Berger on vibes, piano and balafon, Jack on electric, 12-string and classical guitars, Anthony Cox on double-bass and Tom Tedesco on drums and percussion.
The first album from D3, Spontaneous Combustion (Enja/Tutu CD-888126), with Jack on electric guitar, Tony DeCicco on double-bass and Bruce Ditmas on drums, now a classic, was the very first recording at the then barely completed Tedesco Studio, engineered by David Baker and produced by Peter Wiessmüller.
Arthur Lipner and DeSalvo’s duo performances featuring Arthur’s vibes and marimba and Jack’s classical and electric guitars led to the recording Liquide Stones (Enja/Tutu CD-888132), which received enthusiastic reviews on both sides of the Atlantic: “Using both acoustic and electric instruments, DeSalvo demonstrates technique, intelligence and imagination with a broad streak of lyricism and passion in what amounts to one of the better guitar voices to be heard in improvised music these days.” – Cadence “Guitar and vibraphones in a thrilling duo recital with timeless, inflammable ideas. Thus warm ballads burgeon beside provoking, avant-garde sound plasma, forming their own integrated musical system of co-ordination.” -Rainer Guerich, CD Tips, Germany.
Arthur recorded DeSalvo’s composition Pramantha on his own album In Any Language that included Vic Juris on guitar.
DeSalvo performed with various ensembles at the Knitting Factory and elsewhere, including Pat Hall’s Quintet and his own groups including a trio with bassist Jeff Carney and Bruce Ditmas and a quartet with saxophonist Chris Kelsey, bassist Peter Herbert and Ditmas. This quartet eventually recorded DeSalvo’s album Sudden Moves (UR9989).
The album Stutches (UR9996), with Jack on banjo, mandolin and various guitars, Chris Kelsey on soprano saxophone and Tom Tedesco on tabla, percussion and drums was recorded at Tedesco Studio by engineer Jon Rosenberg.
Not long after, the long-time duo of DeSalvo and percussionist Tom Cabrera recorded their first album Tales of Coming Home (UR9986) with Cabrera on frame drums and percussion and DeSalvo on steel-string acoustic six and 12-string and slide guitars and mandolin.
All through this time DeSalvo was improvising on classical guitar. In his liner notes to his solo guitar record Jubilant Rain (UR9987) he says, “I discovered improvised music little by little as a teenager, studying classical guitar and playing in garage bands. It was, however, the solo recordings of Keith Jarrett that intimated a process that was perhaps even more paradigm shattering than the astonishing jazz that I was listening to at that time. Jarrett wasn’t simply improvising over the harmonies inherent in a composed song.
“He was making the whole thing up.
“…I was determined to search for, if not the same process, a process that would necessitate moving myself out of the way and allowing music that clearly already exists in some other world, some other dimension, some parallel universe beyond myself, to flow through my instrument, the guitar.”
A chamber group version of DeSalvo’s piece The Guest was commissioned by the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and performed by Anthony Scafide’s chamber ensemble.
He continued to perform his own music in New York at various spots including performances at The Internet Cafe arranged by and featuring saxophonist Tony Malaby with a quintet that also included trumpeter Dave Ballou, bassist John Hébert and drummer Ed Ware followed by a quartet with Ron Horton on trumpet, Hébert and Tony Moreno on drums.
This period turned into a time of intense self-reflection and focus on classical guitar repertoire from renaissance lute music, through Bach to modern works including Britten’s Nocturnal and transcriptions of Ginastera’s piano music.
DeSalvo premiered composer Sean Hickey’s classical guitar piece Tango Grotesco, which was dedicated to the guitarist, at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.
A return to Omni-Mix Studio for a different type of solo guitar record, Pramantha (UR9988), with steel-string acoustic guitars and his own compositions, that, like predecessor recordings My Goals Beyond by John McLaughlin and Bill Connors’ Theme To The Guardian on ECM and even Bill Evans’ Conversations With Myself, renders a most personal album.
DeSalvo’s relationship with UNSEEN RAIN Records and producer-engineers Gene Gaudette and Jim DeSalvo has created an artistic home for DeSalvo’s work as a recording artist and as a producer, bringing in artists he respects and admires and offering a catalog of over 120 recordings, many audiophile.
Following Jack’s brother Jim’s untimely and tragic death in 2019, Jack and Gaudette merged Unseen Rain with Woodshedd Records uniting with partners Tom Cabrera, Julie Lyon and recording engineer Larry Hutter.
Selected DeSalvo Discography on Unseen Rain Records
| Album | Group or Leader |
| Bookendless | Chris Kelsey |
| Wood’s edge | Jack DeSalvo |
| Numinous | Jack DeSalvo |
| Jhana | Jhana |
| Sótano | Sótano |
| Bare Trees | Jack DeSalvo |
| Live At Scholes Street | Jack DeSalvo |
| Sumari IV | Sumari |
| Quintrepid | Quintrepid |
| Whisper of Dreams | Julie Lyon |
| Ramsey | Sumari |
| Before Testo | Sumari |
| Zone II | Zone |
| So Many Roads | Jack DeSalvo and Joel Shapira |
| Aurguri | Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera |
| Minerals | Jack DeSalvo |
| Nevica | Jack DeSalvo |
| Poemas del Hogar | Julie Lyon |
| Lumens | Nicole Johanntgen and Jack DeSalvo |
| Zone | Zone |
| Sumari III | Sumari |
| End Times | 12 Houses |
| Sumari III | Sumari |
| Soldano Dieci Anni | Dom Minasi and Jack DeSalvo |
| Chris Kelsey Quintet | Chris Kelsey |
| Connoisseurs of Chaos VII | Connoisseurs of Chaos |
| Connoisseurs of Chaos VI | Connoisseurs of Chaos |
| While We Sleep | Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera |
| Moonflow | Julie Lyon |
| The Crossing | Jack DeSalvo |
| D3+1.1 | D3 |
| D3+1.0 | D3 |
| Julie | Julie Lyon |
| Solidarity | 12 Houses |
| The Face of the Change of the Century to Come | Chris Kelsey |
| Sumari | Sumari |
| Inherence | Joel Shapira |
| 1Up1Down | Chris Kelsey |
| Juniper | Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera |
| Cydonia | Tom Cabera |
| Connoisseurs of Chaos II | Connoisseurs of Chaos |
| Libra Moon | Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera |
| Lion Hearted | Jack DeSalvo |
| Westbury Converge | Joel Shapira |
| K3rnelPAN1c | Pat Hall |
| Tales of coming Home | Jack DeSalvo and Tom Cabrera |
| Jubilant Rain | Jack DeSalvo |
| Pramantha | Jack DeSalvo |
| Sudden Moves | Jack DeSalvo |
| Starlight | Jack DeSalvo |
| Heliconia | Jack DeSalvo |
| River Road | River Road |
| Stutches | Chris Kelsey |
As Producer, etc…
| Artist | Title | UR Cat# | DeSalvo’s Role |
| Nicole Johäntgen, Jack DeSalvo | UR9925 | classical guitar, producer | |
| Zone | Zone | UR9927 | guitar, producer |
| Guilermo Bazzola, Risto Vuolane, Fernando Lamas | Kotka | UR9928 | executive producer |
| Sumari | Live at Scholes St. Studio | UR9929 | guitar, banjo, producer |
| Sumari | Sumari III | UR9930 | guitar, bass ukelele, producer |
| Pat Hall’s Time Remembered Organ Group | Live at Shapeshiter Lab | UR9931 | producer |
| Matt Lavelle’s 12 Houses | Roulette Concert | UR9932 | guitar, banjo, bass ukelele, producer |
| Matt Lavelle’s 12 Houses | End Times | UR9933 | banjo, producer |
| Matt Lavelle Quartet | Matt Lavelle Quartet | UR9934 | producer |
| Tom Cabrera Trio with Bob Rodriguez, Mark Hagan | What I’ve Found | UR9935 | producer |
| Joel Shapira | Bottomless Pit | UR9936 | executive producer |
| Rich Rosenthal Quartet | Live at Quinn’s | UR9937 | executive producer |
| Sumari | Sumari II | UR9938 | guitar, producer |
| Lewis Porter | Plays Jack DeSalvo | UR9939 | producer |
| Dom Minasi, Jack DeSalvo | Soldano Dieci Anni | UR9940 | guitar, producer |
| Chris Kelsey | Chris Kelsey Quintet | UR9941 | guitar, producer |
| Bob Rodriguez, Lee Marvin, Krestin Osgood | RMO | UR9942 | producer |
| Happy House | Happy House Plays Ornette | UR9943 | producer |
| Blaise Siwula with Dmitry Ishenko, Dave Miller | Remolina | UR9944 | producer |
| Matt Lavelle’s 12 Houses | End Times | UR9945 | banjo, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo with Tom Cabrera | While We Sleep | UR9946 | acoustic and classical guitars, cello, mandola, bass ukelele, producer |
| Rocco John Quartet | Embrace The Change | UR9947 | producer |
| Julie Lyon | Moonflower | UR9948 | guitar. mandola, producer |
| Fulminate Trio: Michael Evans, Ken Filiano, Anders Nilsson | Triangulation | UR9949 | producer |
| Jack DeSalvo, Arthur Lipner, Bob Rodriguez, Todd Urban, Jon Berger | The Crossing | UR9950 | electric and classical guitars, producer |
| Matt Lavelle’s 12 Houses | Solidarity | UR9951 | banjo, producer |
| Joris Teepe, Josh Evans, Adam Kolker, Jon Davis, Mike Clark | Workaholic | UR9952 | producer |
| Matt Lavelle and John Pietaro: Harmolodic Monk | Harmolodic Monk | UR9953 | producer |
| Julie Lyon Quintet | Julie | UR9957 | guitar, producer |
| Pat Hall, Bill Evans, Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis, Marvin Sewell, Mike Campenni | Time Remembered | UR9960 | producer |
| Chris Kelsey with Lewis Porter piano, Jack DeSalvo cello, Joe Gallant bass, Dave Miller drums | The Change of The Face of The Century of Jazz To Come | UR9961 | cello, producer |
| Lavelle, DeSalvo, Cabrera | Sumari | UR9962 | cello, mandola, guitar, producer |
| Joel Shapira, Jack DeSalvo | Inherence | UR9963 | guitar, producer |
| Lewis Porter Trio | Trio Solo | UR9964 | producer |
| Lewis Porter, Jack DeSalvo, Joe Gallant, Alan Lerner | One Up One Down Live From Nowhere | UR9965 | guitar, producer |
| Cabrera and DeSalvo | Juniper | UR9966 | mandola, cello, classical, electric, and 12-string slide guitars, producer |
| Steve Cohn, Matt Lavelle, Jack DeSalvo, Michael Evans | Cohn, Lavelle, DeSalvo, Evans | UR9970 | cello, mandola, alto guitar, producer |
| D3 plus Matt Lavelle | Offworld | UR9972 | guitar, producer |
| Rob Reich, Gandharva Earl Sauls, Jerrold Kavanagh | These Moments | UR9974 | producer |
| Bob Rodriguez, Lee Marvin, Bruce Ditmas | Things I Meant To Say | UR9975 | producer |
| Steve Cohn | Round The World | UR9977 | producer |
| DeSalvo, Cabrera | Libra Moon | UR9978 | mandola, cello, acoustic guitar |
| Matt Lavelle, Ras Moshe, Tom Zlabinger, Tom DeSteno | Send Out Signals | UR9979 | producer |
| Herb Kloss, Jack DeSalvo, Tom Cabrera | Lion Hearted | UR9980 | classical guitar, cello |
| Bob Rodriguez, Lee Marvin, Krestin Osgood | Fish Cannot Leave Deep Water | UR9981 | producer |
| John Korchok, Frank Jolliffe, Bob Siebert, Steve Orbach | Artcrime | UR9982 | producer |
| Steve Cohn | Anspruchsvoll | UR9983 | producer |
| Pat Hall | K3rnelPaN1c | UR9985 | guitar, slide guitar, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo | Tales of Coming Home | UR9986 | acoustic guitar, mandolin, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo | Jubilant Rain | UR9987 | classical guitar, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo | Pramantha | UR9988 | acoustic and 12-string guitars |
| Jack DeSalvo, Chris Kelsey, Peter Herbert, Bruce Ditmas | Sudden Moves | UR9989 | guitar, producer |
| D3 | Starlight | UR9990 | guitar, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo | Heliconia | UR9991 | guitar, producer |
| Jack DeSalvo, Dan Willis, Lee Marvin, Jon Berger | River Road | UR9994 | guitar, mandola, mandolin, producer |
| Sam Morrison and D3 | Over the Edge | UR9995 | guitar, producer |
| Kelsey, Tedesco, DeSalvo | Stutches | UR9996 | banjo, mandolin,electric and classical guitars, co-producer |
| Tom DeSteno, Jack DeSalvo, Mark Hagan | Coriolis Sky | UR9999 | guitar, co-producer |
Jack DeSalvo lives near NYC and in addition to recording and performing on acoustic, electric, archtop, classical, alto, slide and-lap steel guitars, cello, mandola, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and other instruments he spends his time composing and teaching.
Copyright © 2013, 2022 Jack DeSalvo Music
Frances Paul (Paricio)
March 15, 2013
You have certainly made good use of the last 30-odd years. 😉
David DeFilippo
August 23, 2014
Well done, Well done.
Don Volenik
April 25, 2017
Love your music. This from a musician who has gone from playing all kinds of gigs over the years to now playing no gigs unless it’s new and creative music. Hopefully we can hear you sometime soon in the Cleveland/northeast Ohio region.
admin
April 26, 2017
Thanks Don.
Frank DeSalvo
January 12, 2018
Stumbled into you by chance. Glad I found you. We might be cousins!
admin
January 12, 2018
Hey Frank – yes we could be related! I will check out your soundcloud link.
Jack