Dan Wilson is a 23 year old jazz guitarist from Akron Ohio. He is working on his master's degree at Youngstown State.

I first heard about him in January 2005 from Kip Reed, a local bassist. When I heard Dan play in June 2005, I was totally blown away. This young man plays with the feel and maturity of someone who's been playing jazz for 25 years. He has that really "greasy" organ-trio kind of feel like Benson, O'Donel Levy, Rodney Jones, etc.

I had previously told students that the only way to achieve that feel was by going out on the road with Jack McDuff or Jimmy McGriff for a few years but Dan's got it going on without having been on the road with an organ trio! He explained that he derived much of his feel from playing gospel music in church along with copping Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Grant Green, etc.

Here are a couple clips (excerpts from a concert recorded earlier in 2005)

• Spain
• Flintstones (Rhythm Changes)
• Willow Weep for me
• For all we know

A new clip from 2007

• Take 5 (Dan Wilson, Kip Reed, Dan Murphy, Mark Gonder)

You can contact Dan here: dweezy02@aol.com