Billboard #1 Smooth Jazz Artist Slim Gambill

Slim Gambill started rocking out as a kid, found jazz early and wound up playing in a country band. Clearly, Jason "Slim" Gambill is not one to be constrained by limitations. Or expectations. The Nebraska-born, Colorado-raised guitarist is, of course, best known for his 13 years of working with country hitmakers Lady A, a key adjunct in the trio's rise to multi-platinum, award-winning fame thanks to his hot licks and his trademark two-foot-long braids. But Gambill draws from a deep musical well, and his recent albums -- FAKE JAZZ & THEME SONGS, LCD -- as well as his buoyant new single "Up" and music that's to come are the work of someone with endless ambition and no boundaries on his ambitions or imagination. Throughout his continuing tenure with the band Gambill never lost sight of his own music, squirreling songs and ideas away as Lady A traveled around the world. After about a decade he decided to start letting the rest of the world hear it. FAKE JAZZ & THEME SONGS -- which features guest appearances by the Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin, Hanson guitarist Isaac Hanson, Legendary Pianist Kenneth Crouch and vocalist Candace Devine -- was the result of a friend inviting him to play on a jazz festival bill in New Mexico. "I wrote a bunch of songs for the show, and they turned out really well," Gambill says. "That pushed me to get serious about doing my own music again." He followed with LCD during the fall of 2020 (featuring guests Coffin, Mindi Abair, Pierce the Veil's Vic Fuentes, Rival Sons' Michael Miley, put together "24 on 6," a guitar summit to benefit MusiCares Covid-19 relief efforts on which Gambill, 17 other guitarists and several vocalists mashed up Wes Montgomery's "Four on Six" with "Stevie Wonder's "I Wish." With "Up," meanwhile, Gambill moves into what he calls "Vintage Smooth Jazz," revisiting influences he felt from the likes of Benson, Bob James, Dave Grusin, Chuck Mangione and others. "These are all cats that really inspired me," he notes. "That early Smooth Jazz was super cool, a lot of jazz players who were basically making R&B records."

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