NEDERLAND -- Jason Greenlaw grew up on the East Coast, just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor of arts in Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, studying guitar under Joe Negri and improvisation under Geri Allen, before moving to Colorado in 2020. He is currently based in the Denver/Boulder area of Colorado, where he focuses primarily on jazz guitar, playing in solo shows, small jazz combos, pit orchestras, and wedding bands. He is also a teacher, having taught hundreds of students ranging from 6 to 80 years old, and he loves inspiring passion for music in his audiences and his students.
Greenlaw has been interested in music from a very young age. His first instrument was the violin in elementary school (around first or second grade), and he eventually picked up the alto saxophone, playing that instrument into middle school. By sixth grade, he switched to the guitar and never looked back. At that point, he started performing in the jazz band at the beginning of high school and delved into private music instruction outside of school.
Greenlaw’s private teacher started exposing him to more jazz music during that time, but it wasn’t until he started and graduated college that he started performing it on a more serious level on his own. Especially in middle and high school, he also listened to 90s grunge music, and his dad loved classic rock, including Santana and Billy Cobham. In the end, though, jazz became his primary focus as he explored music more on his own.
Greenlaw has been involved in many projects since he started his jazz journey. In 2013, he co-founded the jazz-rock band The Clock Reads, who performed across the East Coast and Midwest and established themselves as a name in the Pittsburgh music scene. In 2016, collaborating with John Page Classic Guitars and its founder Howard Swimmer, he performed with Tomo Fujita, guitarist and educator at Berklee College of Music, and the Sugar Hill Gang. In 2018, he performed with the Pittsburgh Opera in a production of Jeremy Howard Beck’s The Long Walk. Since moving to the Colorado area, he’s been writing more songs and performing in two original projects, Superimposition and Sixth Wind.
For Greenlaw, inspiration for writing can come from many different places, including from artists who inspire him, but he still focuses on performing covers, particularly in his solo sets. Greenlaw always finds energy in performing live, even if he’s performed a particular song for a long time already, and he always finds something new in every live show, whether it’s from the energy of the crowd or his own playing. He hopes that anyone who comes to his shows feels a sense of fun, joy, and spontaneity in his performances, and he always hopes to inspire the musical passions of his crowds through what he plays.
Jason Greenlaw will be performing a solo set at Eldora, primarily located at 2861 Eldora Ski Road in Nederland. He’ll be performing at the Caribou Lodge as part of Eldora’s Full Moon Ski and Dinner Series on Monday, January 13, 2025, starting at 7 p.m. Learn more about him by going to his website at https://www.jasongreenlawmusic.com/, where you can also find his social media and all of his releases wherever you get your music.
