Jonathan Kaspy

Guitarist Jonathan Kaspy likes to consider himself more than just a musician. He's a self-proclaimed modern “jazzer”, and while jazz is his bag, it’s the pop-oriented influences that make his music unique.
His personal sound is reflective of not only his jazz guitar influences (most notably Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jonathan Kreisberg, Lage Lund and Ben Monder) but is also directly influenced by the compositional genius of The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and Billy Joel as well as more modern influences like Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens.

A native to Montreal, QC, Jonathan now resides in Toronto, ON, constantly refining his jazz guitar skills with folk pop, rock and blues influences. It began with exposure to the music of The Beatles at a young age, thanks to his folk-guitarist father, but any artist is a work-in-progress, a constantly-evolving sum of his experiences. Jonathan is deeply immersed now, currently finishing up his Bachelor of Music at Humber College while playing and teaching in the GTA.
He currently works as a sideman in a few ensembles. Firstly, there's the Denielle Bassels Quintet, a mellow group that plays jazz standards, energetic blues tunes and some very cool originals. There's also Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School, a big band that plays Chelsea’s modern-jazz-with-a-whole-lot-more compositions. He also finds some of his own work as a leader, playing jazz standards at functions and events. Most importantly, Jonathan leads his own quintet that is currently in the studio recording their EP.
Over the course of his musical endeavors, Jonathan has had the pleasure of studying guitar with Montreal pros Nick DiTomaso and Kenny Bibace, and Toronto heavy-hitters Dr. Andrew Jacob Scott and Geoff Young. He has studied composition and arranging with Christopher B.J. Smith, Jean-Nicholas Trottier and Jim Lewis as well as music production and techniques with renowned sound engineers Peter Cook and Ian Terry.
Jonathan is fortunate enough to have performed both nationally (from province to province) and internationally as well, thanks to an exchange program with Denmark where he performed, participated in and conducted clinics on jazz. He has played musicals and has performed at venues such as Le Diable a Quatre, Le Gymnase, The Rex, Gate 403, The Trane Studio, The Gallery as well as the Montreal International Jazz Festival, just to name a few.