Jimmy Bruno was born in Philadelphia on July 22, 1953. Jimmy’s father was a skilled guitarist whose successful recording “Guitar Boogie Shuffle” with Frank Virtue and The Virtues racked up sales of 2 million copies. Needless to say, guitar music was alive and well in Bruno’s house and having a famous guitarist as a father provided the motivation for Jimmy to eventually become a true jazz guitar virtuoso in every sense of the word. .
Jimmy Bruno started playing the guitar at the age of 7. Mostly self-taught, with the help of his father, he began playing with The Buddy Rich Band when he was 19 years old. Since then, Bruno has led a busy career as a musician. Studio guitarist accompanying pop and jazz artists such as Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Elvis Presley, Barbara Streisand, and BB King. He later studied guitar with Tommy Tedesco and later collaborated on Tedesco’s book “The Anatomy Of A Guitar Player”.
Jimmy Bruno, a hard-driving jazz bebop guitarist, plays consistently amazing solos in straight settings. Since his father was a guitarist and his mother a vocalist, Bruno was surrounded by music, commonly practicing his guitar 8 hours a day! He worked with numerous popular orchestras playing behind artists such as Frank Sinatra, Doc Severinsen and Lena Horne and worked for a long period as a studio session guitarist in Los Angeles.
In the end, Jimmy was consumed with studio session work, and regardless of the steady money, he chose not to play music that did not interest and challenge him again. He returned to Philadelphia in 1988, took a day job as a bartender and played jazz in small clubs whenever he got the chance. After 2 years, he went back to being a full-time guitarist once again. He signed to Concord Records in 1992 and has since recorded 13 albums as a bandleader.
In addition to his work as the leader of his own trio, Jimmy Bruno has gone on to play guitar with Joe Beck, Bobby Watson, Jack Wilkins, Tal Farlow, Howard Alden, Christian McBride, Kurt Elling, and other top artists. In 2007 he opened the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute, which was an effective online service for jazz guitar students who wanted to study with him face-to-face over the Internet. He has also released 3 highly effective jazz guitar instructional DVDs consisting of “No Nonsense Jazz Guitar”, “Inside Outside Jazz Guitar” and “The Art Of Picking”.
Jimmy Bruno’s technical mastery of the guitar is absolutely amazing! Jazz guitar legend Johnny Smith has praised Jimmy as one of the most exceptional jazz guitarists he has ever heard. Even when he plays super fast improvised solos, he is always very melodic and innovative. When Jimmy plays solo jazz guitar, he reaches the same level as Joe Pass when Joe was recording all of his “Virtuoso” albums. His walking bass lines, groundbreaking harmonizations, and searing single-note lines have established Jimmy as one of the most amazing and impressive jazz guitarists ever recorded.
