Description
- "Olympic-caliber guitar gymnastics [????]" - Bob Gendron, 'Downbeat' - "Take everything you know and love about...jazz guitar and become a blank slate. Jon Lundbom...fuels ['hard bop'] with an edgy intensity that will set your hair on fire." - Brent Black, 'Bop-N-Jazz' - "Left-leaning, progressive jazz that's long left the wannabes in the dust. With the guitar out front, angular jazz is on parade in fine form " - Chris Spector, 'Midwest Record' - "[Lundbom] takes it out in his very own way... In many ways he has arrived, but then so has this band." - Grego Applegate Edwards, 'Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog' - "A band acclaimed for it's ability to channel acid rock aggression with quirky swing, heavy bop and more...fusion heads take note" - Stuart Derdeyn, 'The Province' - "Blessed with one of the most talented and exciting backing bands in jazz today, guitarist Jon Lundbom returns with a mammoth 2-CD live epic...uniformly a great listen" - Dave Wayne, 'All About Jazz' - "The guitar leads are fresh and bold" - Tom Hull, 'Tom Hull - On the Web' - "Rocks out without leaning on jazz fusion as a crutch" - Mark Corotto, 'All About Jazz' ---------- Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Jon Lundbom resides in Brooklyn, New York City. He leads Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord, with which he has released six albums. Jon's music - described as 'Hardbop + Zeppelin + Schoenberg' (Dave Madden, 'SLUG') - is a showcase for his 'intense phrasing and mind-altering solo spots' (Glenn Astarita, 'All About Jazz'), a 'boundary-shattering shot of adrenaline that screws with your head and messes with your soul' (Jordan Richardson, 'The Seattle PI'). Jon has been called 'an idiosyncratic genius harboring boundary-stretching notions in his musical make up' (CJ Bond, 'JazMuzic.com'); 'hopefully Lundbom will start getting more attention for his fresh perspective, both as a writer and player' (Mike Shanley, 'ShanleyOnMusic'), '[Jon's playing brings] new ideas to what jazz guitar can be' (Paul Acquaro, 'Free Jazz Blog'); 'Big Five Chord, individually and collectively, is one of the most important [ensembles] around today' (Grego Appelgate Edwards, 'Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog'). In addition to Big Five Chord, Jon also co-leads the Jon Lundbom/Bryan Murray Quartet with tenor saxophonist Bryan Murray. As a sideman, Jon performs regularly with Bryan & the Haggards, Wolfe & the Wayside, Andi Rae & the Back River Bullies, the ICUP Orchestra, and Aaron Irwin's Vicious World Project, as well as with Stuart d'Arrietta's 'Belly of a Drunken Piano - The Music of Tom Waits.' Jon has collaborated extensively with a number of theater and performance artists including Andrew Dinwiddie (Catch! Performance Series) and Julia May Jonas (Nellie Tinder); his most recent collaboration with Julia Jonas and Nellie Tinder, 'Evelyn,' premiered at the Bushwick Starr in February 2012 and was remounted for the 2013 Other Forces Festival at the Incubator Arts Project at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Originally hailing from the suburbs of Chicago, Jon began playing guitar in the second grade, more seriously as a young teenager. After years of performing in and around his hometown and a brief tour of Europe, Jon moved to Chicago proper to attend the Jazz Studies program at DePaul University. There he studied Jazz guitar with Bob Palmieri, classical guitar with Mark Maxwell, and improvisation with Larry Novak, Larry Gray, Alan Swain, and others. Also, while at DePaul, Jon studied classical composition with Drs. George Flynn, Kurt Westerburg, and Jeff Kowalkowski (of Jack the Dog). As Jon's interests in twentieth-century classical music and more advanced forms of improvisation developed, his music became increasingly informed by non-linear complexity and open improvisational structures. While at DePaul, Jon maintained an active performance schedule, performing frequently under his own name in and around Chicago. He also, along with cellist and composer Andrew Morgan, co-founded both the DePaul University Avant-Garde Music Society and (with guitarist Aaron Solomon) the Seven Days of Stockhausen improvisation collective. Jon also performed or recorded alongside such renowned musicians as Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Ken Vandermark, Fred Lomberg-Holm, Eric Leonardsen, Laurie Lee-Moses, and Bob Falesch. Upon graduation, Jon relocated to New York City and began performing on the Jazz and improvised music scenes while studying with guitarists such as John Scofield, Ben Monder, and Steve Cardenas. Eventually, Jon began attending the Master's program at the Manhattan School of Music. There, Jon studied privately with Jack Wilkins, as well as with David Liebman, Chris Rosenberg, and Phil Markowitz, to name a few. Jon left MSM after a semester, however, and began pursuing his own music toward the release of his debut recording, 'Big Five Chord.' Since then, Jon has released five additional albums with Big Five Chord: 'All the Pretty Ponies' (2005), 'Accomplish Jazz' (2009), 'Quavers! Quavers! Quavers! Quavers!' (2011), 'No New Tunes' (2012), and now 'Liverevil' (2013). Recorded live at Brooklyn Fire Proof, 'Liverevil' marks Big Five Chord's sixth album and their first live recording since 2005. 'Liverevil' features a number of new and previously unrecorded Lundbom compositions in addition to a three-part suite of Wiccan prayer songs and a cover of 'North Star' by the Rural Alberta Advantage.
