I am a musician, guitarist, and composer. I gravitate towards music that has a groove. My favorite styles tend to be where funk, soul, blues, and jazz intersect.

I am currently playing with Ikebe Shakedown, an Afro-funk band based in Brooklyn, NY. We recently released our self-titled full-length album on Ubiquity Records. Our debut EP and 45rpm record "Hard Steppin'" was released on Colemine Records in October 2009. I'm also playing in The Josh Tyler Band, a folk/rock/blues band based in the Hudson Valley. We just released our debut EP "Next To You".

I am living in NYC and am offering guitar lessons in the NYC area. Please see the lessons page of my website for more information.

I have been playing guitar ever since my parents gave me my first guitar and lesson for my tenth birthday in 1995. I also studied piano for many years, which I in fact began before guitar. I am a self-taught electric bass player as well. But guitar has been my main focus for quite some time now. I began playing numerous styles - but especially remember playing a lot of blues as well as Beatles songs - studying with singer/songwriter Jan Nigro, who was an excellent first teacher. After several years, I studied a variety of styles for a year or so with guitarist Chris Woodard. From here I decided to delve into the realm of classical guitar, being particularly enthralled by the compositions of contemporary classical guitarist and composer Andrew York. I studied classical guitar with Doug Esmond and Linda Chellouf, both graduate students at Ithaca College. After studying classical for 2 years, I decided that I wanted to learn more jazz. I began by taking a few lessons with professor Steve Brown at Ithaca College. Since this time, I have continued to study jazz guitar. I graduated from Bard College in 2007, where I double-majored in music and biology, focusing on jazz and ecology within those fields. I took jazz courses at Bard with pianist John Esposito and tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay - both superb musicians, as well as great teachers. I took jazz guitar lessons with Peter Einhorn for 2 years and subsequently studied my junior and senior year of college with Mike DeMicco (of the Brubeck brothers quartet, in addition to his own projects), who I learned so much from.

There are several groups that I previously played with - both in the Ithaca, NY area where I am from, as well as in the Hudson Valley. In Ithaca I played for many years with (and released an album with) Non-Existent, playing original high-energy jazz-funk with horn driven melodies. I also performed and recorded with Dirac, playing a mix of funk, rock, and jazz. Keep an eye out for reunion shows as they do happen every once in a while. The Blue Lemons, a folk/rock/country band, is another Ithaca area group that I have been a member of. In the Hudson Valley, I played in the now defunct group The Brilliant Corners, a quartet playing original jazz-funk as well as jazz standards, some of the members of which kept playing together and formed Ikebe Shakedown.