Alex de Grassi

Windham Hill and after

Alex de Grassi was born on February 13, 1952 in Yokosuka, Japan, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area; his father was a classical pianist. He started on trumpet, took up guitar at thirteen, and studied guitar with Bill Thrasher, jazz piano with Mark Levine and composition with William Mathieu; sources differ on whether he was self-taught. He took a degree in urban geography at UC Berkeley in 1979. Around 1973 he played subways and folk clubs across Europe, and from 1974 to 1977 he worked as a carpenter under his cousin Will Ackerman, founder of Windham Hill, at Windham Hill Builders.

His debut, Turning: Turning Back, appeared on Windham Hill in 1978 as WH 1004, followed by Slow Circle (1979), Clockwork (1981), Southern Exposure (1984, a return to solo guitar), Altiplano (1987, RCA Novus), Deep at Night (1991) and The World's Getting Loud (1993). The Water Garden (1998, Tropo) was nominated for a Grammy. He made interpretations of Simon & Garfunkel (1997) and James Taylor (1998), the collaborations Tatamonk (2000, with Quique Cruz) and Shortwave Postcard (2001, with G. E. Stinson), and The Bridge (April 2020), recorded at Skywalker Sound.

In 2006 he premiered an original concerto for steel-string guitar, string quartet and string orchestra with the violinist Jeremy Cohen, and he has twice been commissioned by the New York Guitar Festival to score silent films. He has played Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap and the Montreux Jazz Festival, and teaches and writes guitar books. Tom Wheeler wrote in Guitar Player that his technique shoves fellow pickers to the cliff of decision.