A prolific musician, composer and inventor, Jack West is a singular guitarist with an immediately recognizable sound. He has released six albums, all receiving widespread critical acclaim, and he has performed regularly at leading festivals and venues including SXSW, Atlanta Jazz Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, and Yoshi’s in Oakland. In parallel with his music career, West is also an inventor, and he has patented new musical instruments and solar technologies, pursuits that both bore impressive fruit. Jack has recently ramped up his musical output with multiple musical projects, including two new albums slated for release in early 2026 and tour dates starting in February 2026
Characterized by uncommon rhythmic dexterity, exploratory slide guitar work and a uniquely grooving, percussive acoustic style, West’s playing was described by The Oakland Tribune as sounding “like something never heard before...nothing short of astounding.” His recordings, mostly featuring West with his band Curvature, have elicited extravagant praise, with Cadence Magazine calling his music “subtle, sensuous, accomplished, and mature,” while NPR declared his output “a whole new sub-genre of jazz.”
Rather than a tributary to the mighty river of jazz, it might be more accurate to say West’s music represents a new stream of American acoustic music, an improvisation-laced sound influenced by jazz, but equally engaged with rock, folk, and funk. In many ways he was an early exemplar of the acoustic guitar virtuosi who followed in the percussive footsteps of Michael Hedges (1953 –1997), a world that’s expanded in recent years with YouTube sensations like Marcin, Alexandr Misko, and Luka Stricognoli.
While West shares with these artists an expansive toolkit of impressive percussive techniques, his music is far less about blazing through fully composed pieces and more about innovative grooves and ensemble interplay, with space for impromptu invention. New videos showcasing West’s guitar skills will be released soon leading up to the January 23, 2026 release of his new album, Guitars on Life.
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​With this stunning return to the studio West offers fans of acoustic guitar virtuosity a jaw-dropping sojourn. Guitars On Life presents a captivating collection of steel string duets with fellow guitar explorer Walter Strauss, best known for his extensive work with Malian artists (particularly kora master Sidiki Diabaté and ngoni innovator Mamadou Sidibe). With West supplying the bass, chords, and percussion lines of an entire rhythm section, his bass notes popping due to a thumb pick of his own invention, Strauss weaves expertly filigreed melodies that alternately careen around and caress West’s buoyant foundation. The result is a surprisingly large, full band sound emanating from just two acoustic guitars.
West hails from a long line of musicians in rural Alabama, including his grandfather’s family band, which performed at funerals all across the state. His uncle, an accomplished jazz pianist, first inspired him to play music. Mostly self-taught while growing up in Savannah, Georgia, West played primarily in rock and world music bands as a teen. But in 1993 he shifted course and decided to work exclusively in an acoustic vein, inspired by various country blues players and fingerstyle innovators like Hedges and Leo Kotke. Even before he began to experiment with guitar technology, West had developed a highly personal sound on 6-string acoustic guitar using unusual tunings and a dazzling combination of bluesy slide work, finger-picking, and unorthodox percussive moves.
Though he made some (currently unavailable) recordings in the early ‘90’s with future jazz violin star Jenny Scheinman, West’s first properly released album, Sound Pulling Curves in Time, was released on Ahead Behind Music in 1994. A solo acoustic guitar project, it introduced his versatility as a composer, his penchant for unusual forms, and his consistently enthralling deployment of unorthodox technique. But it was the advent of his band Curvature that put West on the musical map, starting with 1996’s Continuum with percussionist Scott Proffitt, the late Calder Spanier on sax, mandolin legend Mike Marshall and others. The follow up, 1998’s Big Comet Headed for Earth, was the last recording featuring Spanier, who also toured and recorded with a very different guitar wizard, Charlie Hunter. Recorded live in the studio, this album features exceptional improvisational interplay between West and Spanier; and it was posthumously dedicated to the saxophonist.
In 1998, West began what would become a multi-decade series of experiments in acoustic guitar technology when he hired Santa Cruz luthier Jeff Traugott to build him a special 8-string acoustic guitar. The extra strings, one below a normal guitar and one above, enabled West to further expand his technique, for instance slapping a percussive line on the extra bass string while simultaneously playing slide. West played this guitar exclusively on his next three albums, 1999’s As We Know It, 2001’s Big Ideas, and 2003’s Around About Now.
These records also documented his rapidly expanding palette as a player, composer and bandleader, with the first of them bagging the 2000 Homegrown CD Award at Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Sounding unlike any other ensemble on the scene, West’s group attracted some of the Bay Area’s most creative, including drummer Scott Amendola, marimba master Joel Davel, Turtle Island Quartet cellist Mark Summer, and pedal steel expert David Phillips. Legendary producer Lee Townsend, known for his work with guitar explorers Bill Frisell, Charlie Hunter, Kelly Joe Phelps and John Scofield, recognized another incandescent talent, producing Big Ideas and guiding the production of Around About Now. West’s Big Ideas composition “This Life May Be Monitored for Quality Assurance” also won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for that year.
In 2004, after completing the release tour for what would end up being the last Curvature album, West became “obsessed with the idea of altering the tension of the acoustic guitar strings in real time during a performance,” he recalls. Stepping away from performing with Curvature, he got to work on figuring this out (though he did continue to perform as a sideman in other ensembles).
Over 21 years later, and having built three prototype instruments, he’s getting very close to realizing this dream with what he calls the Gliss guitar, a radical new acoustic instrument that allows the player to change a string’s pitch over an octave in real time. He’ll be completing the fourth prototype—and the first to truly work as envisioned—in 2025, and will be recording his first album featuring this guitar in 2026. Look for West to introduce the project to the world with the upcoming album State of Gliss.
It's also of note that West’s work after the Curvature period wasn’t confined to the Gliss guitar. He also invented new types of fingerpicks and new solar technologies. The latter relates to his passion for protecting the environment, which resulted in a part-time, music-supporting gig installing solar systems. West eventually parlayed his solar day-job into a new company, Zep Solar. Launched in 2009 with financial backing from “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell among others, Zep Solar manufactured several of West’s inventions that streamlined roof-mounted solar systems with sleek, aesthetically pleasing new designs. West is equally passionate about saving the planet and about making the planet worth saving. And now, having wrapped up his work on the first of those passions, he’s back to music full time, contributing to the musical culture that makes this planet so interesting.
Of late, West has been having a blast exploring the musical possibilities presented by a new thumbpick he recently invented, “which opened up a whole new way of playing guitar,” West says. Unlike conventional thumbpicks, his design allows West to deploy his trademark “acoustic spank” technique while also striking the strings in both the down and up direction. This new pick even allows him to echo the rapid-fire triplets of flamenco guitar, while remaining true to the funkier feel of American music. Whatever he pursues musically, he’s driven, West explains, by the need to “create music that sounds like nothing I've ever heard.” While unique, West’s music can also be characterized as “highly accessible” (Oakland Tribune) and, at times, “hauntingly beautiful” (East Bay Express).
“inventing songs is the same process as inventing technology”
The coming years include plans for a steady stream of such music to be flowing from his northern California studio. In parallel with the 2026 release of Guitars on Life, West is also simultaneously celebrating his past with the upcoming release of Essential Curvature, an anthology drawn from his five Curvature albums. The double vinyl and streaming release feature remastered tracks that showcase the surging energy, refined textures, deep grooves, and fierce interactivity that first brought West renown.
The fact that West is both a highly accomplished musician and a successful inventor (with over 100 patents) places him in a category without many peers—except possibly the great guitar innovator and hit songwriter Les Paul—a man who West cites, not surprisingly, as a key influence on his life. “For me, inventing songs is the same process as inventing technology,” he says. “I just keep experimenting with new ideas until I find one that works.” Luckily for those who enjoy his music, West is still at it with more technical innovations and compelling musical ideas than ever. As Guitars on Life emphatically confirms, he’s still finding new ideas that work.
