This year we bring in a special guest from the Swing Dance community, one of the foremost guitar players in the style, Jonathan Stout.
A bandleader and guitarist specializing in pre-bebop jazz guitar, Jonathan draws from many and varied styles, including the rhythm guitar of Freddie Green, the electric single-note style of Charlie Christian, the acoustic block-chord solos of Allan Reuss, and the gypsy-jazz of Django Reinhardt. Jonathan also writes a noted blog on swing guitar (now found here, on this website).
Beside playing in his own bands, Jonathan is a member of the Bonebrake Syncopators (led by DJ Bonebrake of the band X), and has played guitar for Michael Gamble and his Rhythm Serenaders, Josh Collazo’s Candy Jacket Jazz Band, Casey MacGill, Dean Mora (Mora’s Modern Rhythmists, et. al), the Boilermaker Jazz Band, the Lucky Stars, Jim Ziegler’s Swingsations, Josh Collazo and his Feetwarmers, Bill Elliott, and Johnny Crawford. He played on Jeremy Wakefield’s 2005 Album, “Steel Guitar Caviar” (Ecco-Fonic), as well as Michael Gamble and his Rhythm Serenaders’ self-titled 2016 debut album.
He is also a featured artist at Denis Chang’s DC Music School, where you’ll find In The Style Of Jonathan Stout, Vol. 1. Here are Jonathan and Denis playing “Swing that Music”: