Not only is he the lead guitarist from the country supergroup Lady A, but Slim Gambill is also a passionate jazz musician with two full length albums under his belt, “Fake Jazz & Theme Songs” and “LCD.” Recently, Slim has made a successful debut on worldwide Smooth Jazz Radio with his vintage spin on the format, entitled “Up,” which features Charlton Singleton of the Grammy-winning band Ranky Tanky. Slim has been featured in BILLBOARD, Rolling Stone, JAZZIZ, and many more for his contemporary jazz project and he has played numerous festivals as well as noteworthy clubs such as Birdland in NYC, The Jazz Kitchen in Indy, Middle C in Charlotte, and a host of others.
“I love sideman land, but it’s cool to put your own music out,” says Gambill, who now resides in Nashville. “Jazz and blues, and classic rock, is what got me into the guitar bug and practicing and learning, so this is kind of almost circling back around to where I started. It’s an amazing outlet I haven’t had for a long time, where I can do whatever I want.”
Gambill’s passion for music was born in Colorado Springs, where his family moved when he was eight years old. He began playing guitar when he was nine, learning on his grandmother’s old acoustic, and became “obsessed” with the Woodstock documentary he first saw when he was 12 years old, transfixed by iconic performances from Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens and Alvin Lee of Ten Years After. He was also informed by his parent’s collection of classic rock albums, subsequently discovering contemporary guitar heroes such as Stevie Ray Vaughan.
A crucial turning point came when Gambill was exposed to jazz at 15, after joining the high school stage band. “The band director gave me an opportunity I didn’t really deserve, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was doing,” he recalls. “But I practiced and worked hard and listened, and I got to be pretty good at reading big band charts, and other guys in the band who knew what they were doing exposed me to a lot of (music).”
Gambill never lost sight of his own music, squirreling songs and ideas away as Lady A traveled around the world. After about a decade he decided to start letting the rest of the world hear it. FAKE JAZZ & THEME SONGS — which features guest appearances by the Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin, Hanson guitarist Isaac Hanson and vocalist Candace Devine — was the result of a friend inviting him to play on a jazz festival bill in New Mexico. “I wrote a bunch of songs for the show, and they turned out really well,” Gambill says. “That pushed me to get serious about doing my own music again.” He followed with LCD during the fall of 2020 (featuring guests Coffin, Mindi Abair, Pierce the Veil’s Vic Fuentes, Rival Songs’ Michael Miley, put together “24 on 6,” a guitar summit to benefit MusiCares Covid-19 relief efforts on which Gambill, 17 other guitarists and several vocalists mashed up Wes Montgomery’s “Four on Six” with “Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish.”
Like so many artists, Gambill spent much of the pandemic lockdown working on material, building a stockpile that he’s been recording both in-person in the studio and virtually. “I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff in the can now,” he says, and Gambill promises listeners will hear both is roots as well as the stems he continues to explore.
