About John Judd

Based in Fairfield County, Connecticut, John Judd's Trio plays jazz standards and originals with a modern twist. Our sound can be subtle enough for dining music or hard-hitting for a bar crowd. Take a listen.

2007 Q&A With John Judd

What have you been up to since your last CD?
It’s been a non-stop musical onslaught in the last two years… trust me, this is a great thing! I started to play six string bass and have been working with the Jim Royle Steel Pan Group which has been great fun and a great learning experience. That music is simply happy. You can’t fight it.

I’ve been playing a fair amount with my trio (John Mobilio: Bass, Jim Royle: Drums). That has been a great time, since we’ve been working out a lot of ideas I had for arranging standards in ways I thought might be more interesting to the musicians and more importantly, the audience. John and Jim have worked so hard on material that challenged all of us to kick it up a notch.

It’s also been two years since the launch of Guitarmageddon (not to be confused with Guitar Center’s contest bearing the same moniker). Guitarmageddon was co-founded with a great friend and a great guitar player, Dan Arcamone. If you want to hear more guitar, more notes, more musical fury get out to see Guitarmageddon! So, speaking of duos… this year the vibraphonist Trevor Williams and I started up a duo project… go check it out on the MP3’s page.

So this year, I’ve been playing a lot more classical guitar, that’s opened up lots of new ideas not just for the guitar, but musically. The counterpoint that classical music contains is something that I’ve been trying to weave into my jazz compositions.

The old sayings are true… as an artist lives, those experiences show up in that art. So everyday, I’m taking joy out of every activity, no matter how mundane and trying to live in the moment. My wife Beth helps with that, she’s always a breath of fresh air and always puts a smile on my face!

Tell us about Dedicated Groove Collective.
I hate to admit this, but for the longest time (as far as originals go) I’ve had writers block. Now here and there new tunes would come out, but in terms of overall output it had actually been about ten years since I’d written gobs of material. I think it all started with the arrival of four children: Davey Judd, Alexis Judd, Katie Nintzel, and Sophie Belanger. That was inspiration enough. One day the tunes were just there…as if God just put them there for me to discover.

Now four of these tunes are from ten years ago. I have to send a thanks out to Keith Lafond and Paul Lebinski for helping in the construction Of Blue’s Bag, Conan, Dilemma, and Redman’s Run. The three of us had a group ten years ago, nothing but originals. Probably one of the best musical experiences I’ve had. Now more recently, my trio with Jim and John had smoothed out these tunes in a live setting.

The rest of the tunes seemingly wrote themselves.

Now here’s something I think is neat…this music was all recorded on a computer that my father and I built together. It took us 15 hours. Thanks, Dad!

One last thing; none of this could have come together without the design skills of Jeff Belanger from Ghostvillage.com. Truly my closest friend. He has an army of books out, and is the founder of the largest Web site in his industry.

What’s in the future?
Right now I’m working on a blues play-along for my students, hopefully it will be done by the fall. I’m also throwing around the idea of putting an instructional book together… a text for my students. And would you believe I already have ten new tunes for the next CD? As it turns out, the tunes that will be on the next CD are the hardest I’ve ever written, technically and musically. We’ll see how long it takes to kick it up a notch and tackle these new songs!

2006 Q&A With John Judd

Who are some of the locals you've performed with?
I've had the opportunity to share the bandstand with some of the finest jazz musicians throughout the tri-state area. People like: Lewis Nash, Nat Reeves, and Phil Bowler are some of the recording artists I've played with.

Where did you get your musical training?
I've been playing guitar for almost 20 years. I was a music major in college, and later got into serious study with some of the finest musicians in the jazz community such as Sal Salvador, Mark Elf, Jack Wilkins, and Walt Weiskopf.

Didn't you do some transcription work for Mark Elf?
Yes, I transcribed Mark Elf's second book of jazz guitar solos.

What kind of music are your students asking to learn?
My students range in age from as young as five to as old as 72, and their tastes span across a lot of different genres of music. This diversity has given me the chance to learn and teach music from artists like: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Mudvayne, Jet, The Vines, The White Stripes, ACDC, Van Halen, Taking Back Sunday, Sting, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, and Travis Tritt just to name a few.

Tell us about Haunted Heart.
For years people have been asking me after gigs if I had a CD. I went into the studio so people can finally have something to bring home after my performances. Five of the tracks feature the John Judd Trio (Henry Lugo-bass, Jim Royle-drums), and three tracks are solo seven-string guitar. Every arrangement is hip and different -- some new twists on old standards.