Jazz Guitar Festival: Pasquale Grasso

The 2023 Jazz Guitar Festival welcomes Pasquale Grasso. “The best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life is floating around now, Pasquale Grasso,” said jazz guitar icon Pat Metheny in 2016. Born in Italy and now based in New York City, Grasso has developed an astounding technique and concept informed not only by jazz guitarists but also by bebop pioneers like Bud Powell, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and the classical guitar tradition. His recordings for Sony Masterworks showcases Grasso in the solo-guitar format, where his intensive studies of both traditional jazz and classical meld into a signature mastery that is at once unprecedented and evocative. His album Pasquale Plays Duke features a duet of the song “Solitude” with 2023 Best New Artist Grammy winner Samara Joy. Pasquale will perform with a trio featuring Zach Compston on drums and Denison faculty Dean Hulett on bass.