Jason Graczyk

Jason Graczyk is a jazz-funk guitarist based in Seattle. He has been playing since 1988, starting under Seattle guitar marvel Kevin Hughes, then building the core of his jazz playing with the late Al Galante of Edmonds and, later, Seattle jazz master Milo Petersen.

In the late 1990s his love of the stringed apparatus catapulted him onstage with the hard-hitting band THRUST, math-rocking Seattle hot spots like the Colourbox, the Off Ramp and the Central for seven years. He broadened his sound with the jazz-fusion band Vinyl Logic, playing favorites like "Some Skunk Funk" and "People Make the World Go Round." Around 2008 his pursuit of the ultimate Afro-jazz sound led him to DJ Danny Massure, and together they formed the Danny Massure Band, a troupe of abundant talent and convulsive hysterics.

One serendipitous night at the Highway 99 Blues Club, saxophonist Tracy Ferrara subbed in on the gig. Her playing filled every ear in the room, and by the end of the night the two had swapped numbers, hoping to play together again someday. A few years later Tracy, a monarch of the jazz realm with an uncanny gift for nicknames, brought Jason into the big funk band Soul Senate, which pulled him into 1960s old-school funk. Soul Senate's rhythm section became Shady Bottom, where Jason learned to bend his strings into the greasiest, grimiest sounds he had ever made, and loved it.

To cleanse the palate, he joined The Hot McGandhis (under an alias), where the focus is squarely on 1960s soul jazz and hard bop, and the band often goes by another name: "Continuing Jazz Education." On the funk side, you can still catch him with Shady Bottom on the second Friday of every month at the Sea Monster Lounge in Wallingford. For Jason, the point of all of it stays the same: great music and, most importantly, great friends.