Jack grew up in the small Northern California town of Sutter Creek. His dad got him started on the guitar around the age of 12 and as soon as he turned 16 began making the hour drive to Sacramento once a week to take lessons with jazz guitarist Henry Robinette. After graduating high school in 1999, Jack moved to San Francisco to attend SF State University where he studied under the late alto saxophonist Andrew Speight (Nat Adderley band) and artists in residence Branford Marsalis and John Handy. The other “school” Jack attended was guitarist Bruce Forman’s 3 night a week residency at “Jazz at Pearl’s” in North Beach, where Jack and many other young guitarists would witness Bruce’s masterful bebop guitar playing and also have a chance to sit in with the band. 

 

Listening, sitting in and formal studies gave way to gigging and eventually becoming one of the most in demand guitar players on the Bay Area jazz scene where he could often be heard playing with musical peers such as Organist Wil Blades, multi instrumentalist Smith Dobson and pianist Adam Shulman. Aside from a brief stint in New York, he remained in the bay for 20 plus years until relocating to Los Angeles in 2021 where he had the opportunity to colaborate with Roy McCurdy (Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderly) and Mark Ferber (Johnathan Kreisberg, Marc Copland). Jack moved back to the Bay Area in 2025. 

 

Jack has worked with world class musicians Dr. Lonny Smith, Larry Goldings, Roy Mccurdy, Mike Clark, Dayna Stephens, Mark Ferber, James Morrison, Jon Gordon, Jared Gold, Hans Glawischnig, Bob Shepard and Ralph Moore.