Jack Gillen is a London-based guitarist, composer and bandleader whose distinctive playing style blends the expressiveness of blues, the improvisational flair of jazz and the melodic sensibility of singer songwriters. His guitar trio is his main outlet as an artist, and features close collaborators bassist Phil Donnelly & drummer Darren Beckett (Aaron Parks, Madeleine Peyroux, Kurt Rosenwinkel). When composing, Jack draws influence from the likes of Nick Drake, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix and Frederic Chopin, as well as modern guitarists such as Julian Lage and John Scofield, guided by a deeply introspective leaning and focus on emotional potency.

 

Other current projects include recording/touring the UK & Ireland with contemporary jazz trio Aspyrian and a brand new organ trio project featuring two of the most in demand jazz musicians in the UK, Jamie Safir (organ) and Luke Tomlinson (drums) where they explore a shared love for groove based, blues influenced music and legendary songwriters such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix. 

 

Starting on classical guitar at age 7, Jack instantly fell in love with the instrument and immersed him self in it. His next musical leap was discovering Hendrix at age 15 and an obsession with blues guitar, before studying jazz at Leeds College of Music. Returning to his home town of London after graduating, Jack cut his teeth as a session guitarist/ co-writer/ musical director/ producer, working with different artists in various musical settings, meanwhile learning a lot about the nuances of songwriting and music making. 

 

After an influential guitar lesson with UK guitar legend Mike Walker (The Impossible Gentlemen), Jack decided to figure out how to combine all of these divergent influences into his own musical identity, and started creating his own original music. The first evidence of this was his 2018 guitar trio EP ‘The Long Way Down’ and more recently his 2024 debut album ‘No Home But Here’ which has received over 100,000 streams and been hailed as ‘emotionally powerful’ (Le Soir). A new EP is set to be released in Autumn 2026.  

 

‘A real storyteller’ – Adam Levy (Norah Jones, Joey Baron, Larry Grenadier, Larry Goldings)