An artist living and working in the Natural State of Arkansas, guitarist and composer Jake Hertzog has come a long way since his 2009 solo album Chromatosphere, an album release on his That’s Out Records label, as well as 2013’s Throwback, which was Jake’s debut release on New York’s Zoho label.

Returning to the Zoho label, Jake’s 2025 solo album is actually a full-scale, orchestral sounding, jazz meets classical fusion album entitled Ozark Concerto. A huge project featuring multiple musicians combining both jazz and classical music textures, Ozark Concerto features Jake’s guitar sounds paired with Garrett Jones (bass), Chris Peters (drums) and Matt Nelson’s piano along with members of the Ozark Jazz Philharmonic conducted by Susumu Watanabe.

Premiered at the Fayetteville campus at the University of Arkansas in April of 2024, where Jake teaches as a professor of music, the superbly recorded Ozark Concerto album stands out as Jake Hertzog’s most adventurous and ambitious musical statement yet.

Interestingly, the 7-part, 46-minute album fulfills Jake’s dream of creating a collection of new music for guitar draped with an orchestral and classical sound or as he calls it, a “philosophy”.

Not only does the album work as a modern day neo-classical jazz album yet it also comes across well as a contemporary, pure avant-garde orchestral work that wouldn’t sound out of place on a large classical music label.

Jake also cites various recordings by modern day fretboard masters like Pat Metheny and Kurt Rosenwinkle as being an influence. The album also casts a nod to the orchestral jazz sounds pioneered by labels such as CTI Records while the liner notes compares it to groundbreaking works by guitar heroes like Kenny Burrell and Bill Frisell.

Even with so much guitar legacy from decades past on the line, Jake Hertzog truly comes into his own with the ambitious and highly successful sound of Ozark Concerto.

 

RMR SPEAKS WITH JAKE HERTZOG

RMR: It’s quite an achievement considering you wrote all the music for your 2025 album Ozark Concerto. What kind of parameters and influences did you apply while composing the music, and is Ozark Concerto for Guitar, Jazz Big Band and String Quartet the first time you composed such a large work for guitar and orchestra? Sounds like you achieved something quite new and unique on Ozark Concerto.

JAKE HERTZOG: Thank you! I had previously composed music for various large ensembles as a jazz student at Berklee, and later at The Manhattan School, but nothing as extensive as this project. The parameters I wanted to work with were fairly broad, but I knew that I wanted one extended work that featured guitar, and I wanted to incorporate a wide cadre of my own musical influences and interests. That said, I have always come from a very jazz/rock background so a lot of the influences in the piece come from uses of the guitar in the rock world too, especially the more “rhythm guitar” passages.

I was inspired by a pretty wide range of orchestral works on the orchestration style and one running theme that I tried to address throughout the piece is the intersection of the guitar with each section of the ensemble, so there are many passages of guitar with woodwinds, or guitar with strings, or guitar with brass etc. Then I wanted to explore the mixture of guitar with the various other ‘hybrid’ sounds, such as guitar, violin, and piano, or guitar and trombone. So those ideas were all intersecting to create the various orchestration textures in the work.

 

RMR: How did you connect with and then record the album with the Ozark Jazz Philharmonic conducted by Susumu Watanabe and, he also contributed several arrangements to the album. What did Susumu bring to the table so to speak?

JAKE HERTZOG: We initially connected when Susumu joined our jazz faculty at the University of Arkansas, and together we created a big band of jazz and classical players a year before this project began. I was an admirer of his music and lush arranging style and he even arranged one of my quartet compositions for big band. So, in many ways, we had several elements of the collaboration in place. When the opportunity to create the Ozark Concerto happened – through a Jazz Road Creative Residency grant from South Arts – I knew he would make a great co-pilot.

Susumu was brilliant in understanding where I was coming from musically and interjecting his own artistry into that process. He has a deep background in orchestration so he was really able to find incredible colors and textures with how the ensemble and the guitar could interplay together. Working with him really helped bring many of my ideas to life and taught me so much about seeing the possibilities with this unique instrumentation.

 

RMR: Along with the orchestra, did you also enlist other musicians you know on the Ozark Concerto and what was it like recording in Arkansas? How long did the album take to write, record, mix and complete? Where was the album actually recorded as the liner notes say it was premiered on the Fayetteville campus?

JAKE HERTZOG: I was lucky to be able to use many musicians I knew quite well here in Arkansas, and in the case of both the classical and jazz players, I could write things especially for particular musicians whose sound I love. We recorded at a wonderful studio; Haxton Road Studios in Bentonville Arkansas.

The sessions were in several batches with the string quartet ultimately being recorded on top of the jazz orchestra and rhythm section. All the tracking was done in about two intensive weeks in March 2024, and then we worked on many different mix sessions until about July of that year.

We had a great recording experience and recording so much of it ‘live in the studio’ per se was really fun and challenging for all involved.

 

RMR: How many albums have you made since you began recording, I believe with your solo album Chromatosphere in 2009? How many albums have you released with the Zoho label? The album you released before the Ozark Concerto was Longing To Meet You, recorded in Brooklyn It must have been quite a leap from that album to the Ozark Concerto.

JAKE HERTZOG: This is my 10^th studio album as a jazz solo artist. It’s also my second project with Zoho. The first one, 2013’s Throwback was a quartet album that featured my NYC rhythm section at the time, Victor Jones and Harvie S, along with the incredible Randy Brecker. Yeah, it was fun to go from the quartet format to the large ensemble… such a different challenge and a great way to not end up repeating oneself.

 

RMR: Tell us about the guitar or guitars you play and record on Ozark Concerto and can you add something about any challenges you had recording electric guitar with an orchestra? How many guitars do you use on the album? Are you interested in other guitar companies and what guitarists are you listening to in 2025?

JAKE HERTZOG: This whole album I’m playing my Artinger custom guitar. The main challenge with recording in a large group like that is that the monitoring situation is hard. That means that the tone you hear when you are playing is not the tone on the record and every tone makes you play a little differently. I was able to do some overdubs just to get better control of the sound, especially since the guitar on this project needed to blend well with so many other types of instruments.

I’m always interested in new guitars… Ha! There sure are some fantastic guitarists out there right now. Of course I love what Julian Lage does and what Mike Morano does. I think Camila Meza’s music is just beautiful and I’ve also been a fan of Nir Felder for a long time. It’s a great moment for guitarists!

 

RMR: What do you have planned for 2025 as far as concerts, composing and recording plans you have?

JAKE HERTZOG: Much of my life I’m a full-time music professor but I’m working on plans to perform the concerto next year on the West Coast. I’ll be finishing a new trio record of traditional Ozark folk music that I’ve adapted into a jazz format – so that’s a really fun project that has involved a lot of archival research.

I play a lot regionally with my trio that tends to be a mixture of both old and new music, and I’m working on writing some more classical music for steel string guitar so that’s what this year looks like for me! I also have a research life, so I’ll be writing a book about collegiate jazz programs.