PETER KAVANAUGH

As a guitarist, bandleader, composer and co-producer, what truly nourishes Peter Kavanaugh’s soul are jazz standards and the great American songbook. “I like injecting unexpected elements into songs from the great 20th century composers.” Peter’s appreciation for the rich harmonic structure and deep chordal textures of standards can partly be attributed to his classes with Joe Pass — the jazz guitar icon best known for accompanying Sara Vaughn, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald. Peter showed rare talent even before then, emerging from a statewide jazz competition as the best high school jazz guitarist in Illinois. But then, one “nice, safe, day job” led to another career path altogether, which led further and further away from the one thing he really wanted to do — play guitar. Pangs of regret lingered for years until one day, Peter lived out the fantasy of millions by quitting his day job and moving to a cheap read more...