BIOGRAPHY
Starting at age 11, Jon began playing the trumpet and studying and learning the music. It has been a life long journey of discovery and growth. At the same time he began seriously pursuing photography. In 2013 these two worlds met at a solo exhibit of his historic Los Angeles jazz archive - Los Angeles Jazz Passages - at the Valley Performing Arts Center Gallery on the campus of California State University, Northridge.
In 2014 with co-collaborators Doug MacBeth and Bernard Brown, Jon produced a performance piece combining his playing with his historic jazz archive and live dance - The Jazz Passages Experience. Performed twice at the Lula Washington Dance Theater in Los Angeles.
Jon has become a versatile musician. Formally trained as a visual artist and photographer, music was always a passion, at every stage of his development. Informally, growing up in Los Angeles, listening to and photographing many of the great musicians of the era, you could say Jon learned from the best in his formative years. With young and curious
ears and eyes he exposed himself to the highest level of craft routinely in his teens through the pursuit of his two loves, the trumpet and the camera. His most often photographed and studied trumpet players were, Bobby Shew, Freddie Hubbard, Conte Candoli, Jack Sheldon, Chuck Findley, Bill Berry, Don Rader, Al Vizzutti, Buddy Childers, George Graham, Steve Huffstedter, and Freddie Hubbard.
In the mid 2000's, while living in downtown Los Angeles Jon decided to elevate his investment in his horn. He joined the renowned Los Angeles Community College Jazz Band, and began to reboot and increase his musical engagement.
Soon he joined the Joe Vento Big Band, Thelonious Dub (a jazz fusion group), a James Brown Revival Band, and Jon
started playing at the Unity Church of Los Angeles.
Within a couple of years Jon had played many clubs around Los Angeles, including the world famous Baked Potato, BB Kings Universal, The Industry Cafe, Hip Kitty, Roxanne's, and as well he became a regular at the historic World Stage.
2010 began his slow relocation back to his beloved Pacific NW and a country studio a little ways outside of Portland, Oregon. Over the last three decades, in Oregon Jon has performed with Julianne Johnson, Janice Scroggins, Marilyn Keller, Laura Cunard, Nancy King, George Mitchell, Michael Curtis Jazz Orchestra, Michael Allen Harrison, Carlton Jackson, Jeff Frankel, Andre St. James, Laurent Nickel, Joe Milward, Ron Steen, and more. Jon has performed at Portland Center for the Performing Arts, Atwaters, Clydes, Arriverderci, Scandals, DaVinci Restaurante - Salem, The Jazz Station - Eugene, Wilf's, Kirk Green Band, Yugen Project-Y'Not, and at the Vancouver Ave. First Baptist Church.
In 2013 along with his childhood friend Doug McBeth, Jon produced his first music cd entitled Jazz Passages. It's a humble streamlined acoustic offering that includes a novel set of eight tunes recorded live in studio, and has been played on Portland jazz radio KMHD.
In his quest for artistic advancement and knowledge Jon has sat in with Jazz, Blues, and Dixieland groups all over the country. He's played with Buddy Guy in Chicago, Steamboat Willie in New Orleans, Seleno Clarke at the American Legion Post 398 in Harlem, Lester McFarland and Rose Gales at The World Stage, and many others along the way in Denver, Honolulu, and Washington DC, and more.
Since 2016, along with his friends and collaborators Jon does a steady first Saturday night of the month house gig at Silverton Wine Bar & Bistro in spectacular Silverton, Oregon. at the mouth of one of the most beautiful state parks in the country - Silver Falls State Park As well he's been a regular at the Silverton Sidewalk Shindig music festival since 2013.
Formally, Jon's trumpet and music teachers included: Carlton McBeth, John Stankiewiz, Gary Pratt, Nelson Hatt, Bobby Shew, and Joan Paddock. Informally, it includes everyone that Jon photographed at live performances as a teenager, and more.