Nashville-based guitarist Denny Jiosa performs at Walker’s Jazz Lounge tonight, Tuesday, December 31. The veteran musician will be joined by a trio of Wichita players with bassist Jordan Bollig, drummer Kim Trujillo, and saxophonist Jim Pisano.
Jiosa has been nominated for four Grammys and has recorded with guitarist Phil Keaggy, Bobby Hebb, saxophonist Kirk Whalum, drummer Chester Thompson (Genesis, Frank Zappa), Crystal Gayle, Phillip Bailey, Ronnie Laws, and Take 6 and has released a string of LPs under his own name in addition to his ongoing work as a music educator.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You started playing guitar around an era that I consider to be a golden age for the instrument with music from Jimi Hendrix, the British Invasion bands and instrumental rock groups such as The Ventures, who were also guitar focused.
It’s funny that you bring up The Ventures because I grew up in a little town in Indiana, Huntington. Back in those days, Mom would go to Kroger or Marsh’s I think it was called and they sold vinyl. They had endcaps for vinyl and it was odd stuff. It wasn’t the big hits. You’d find things like The Ventures or obscure things. There was a double album set [by] The Ventures, “Play Guitar With The Ventures.” It had a book in [the gatefold] and the LP. You’d put that on and you learn to play by the dots on the neck [of the guitar].
[But] I’m not as much a technical player as I am a heart player and I’m attracted to heart players, like [Carlos] Santana and Jeff Beck and those kind of players. To me, music’s an emotional thing and I want to be moved.
You have this show at Walker’s and you’re not bringing a band, you’re playing with Wichita musicians. I think there are some people who might say, “You’re not bringing people you’ve played with night after night, year after year. How is that going to work? How will you know the music and how will it meld?”
It’s kind of exciting to me because I never do the songs exactly like the record. I used to think I had to do that. I had to have a keyboard player and I had to have a percussionist. I had to have all these instruments there [to make it sound like] the record. I finally got to the point where I said, “No I don’t because music’s supposed to be an impulse and heartfelt.” I love to feature musicians. I love to have them solo. I’m not dumb. I surround myself with greatness and it lifts me up, so people will walk out saying, “Wow, that Denny Jiosa show was awesome.” Plus those guys have worked hard their whole lives to do what they do. They deserve to be heard.
It's kind of an adventure for me to play with other players and maybe take one of my songs that didn’t swing before and make it swing. We’ve done that. We’ve gone into “Lights of the City,” which was a Top Five hit of mine, it’s a groove thing. In the middle of it, I’ll look at the bass player and say, “Walk it.” They start walking it and away we go. It’s pretty fun. It’s exciting. That’s what it should be.
That was actually going to be another question. Maybe you’re on the date and all of a sudden one musician is playing the melody with just a little bit of a different nuance than you had imagined or maybe somebody’s working with time a little bit different than what you were thinking when you wrote the piece. I would imagine that there’s a certain reward in that.
It's magical sometimes. Look, everybody hears things slightly different. They know it’s a good song but they might say, “What are we going to do to make this happen?” I love working off other musicians. I want that interaction and the ideas [that are coming from you] with my music. “What are going to come up with today?” I just open it up sometimes and they keep an eye on me because you never know what I’m going to do. [Laughs.] I don’t know sometimes what I’m going to do. We start the song, we in the middle of it, we break it down, and [say], “Let’s have fun and bring it back around.” It’s amazing. It is an amazing thing.
