August 2024 — A BILLBOARD and MEDIABASE #1 Smooth Jazz Recording Artist, Slim
Gambill is well known as the lead guitarist for the multi- platinum Big Machine recording artist
Lady A, who has sold more than 16 million albums worldwide, racked up 7 GRAMMYs and
countless ACM, CMA and People’s Choice Awards, and had 10 #1 songs.

But Jason “Slim” Gambill is not one to be constrained by expectations. He started rocking out as
a kid, found jazz early and wound up playing in a country band. Jason “Slim” Gambill Is a
Contemporary Jazz, Rock, and Country guitarist, producer, composer, arranger and songwriter.
Gambill’s passion for music began learning on his grandmother’s old acoustic guitar when he
was none. He became “obsessed” with the Woodstock documentary he first saw when he was
12 years old, transfixed by iconic performances from Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens and Alvin Lee
of Ten Years After.

At age 14, Gambill discovered the George Benson album “BREEZIN” in the local library, and it
was his gateway to jazz guitar, and the link between rock and jazz. At age 15, Gambill joined
the high school stage band and was exposed to playing jazz, with a stretch opportunity he says
he didn’t really deserve. But it just made him work hard. Studying music at USC, was similar.
He was naturally a composer and creator, rather a transcriber of other work.
Around that time, his band Firstman gave Gambill his “Slim” nickname, and his signature braids
became a compromise to avoid cutting off his hair.

Gambill went on to play in the house band for NBC’s LAST CALL WITH CARSON DALY and
off-camera found himself on stage with John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5, Peter
Frampton, Stevie Nicks and many more. An executive at Hollywood Records hooked him up
with pop singer Josh Kelley, which proved to be a career-changer, when Kelley introduced
Gambill to his younger brother Charles, then in the process of forming Lady A.
In 2007, Gambill found himself arriving in Nashville, and three months later, he was in the studio
recording Lady A’ double-platinum, self-titled debut album, for which he co-wrote the track “Slow
Down Sister.” From there, Slim has spent 13 years working with country hitmakers Lady A, a
key adjunct in the trio’s rise to multi-platinum, award-winning fame.

Throughout his continuing tenure with the band Gambill never lost sight of his own music. “I
love sideman land, but it’s cool to put your own music out,” says Gambill. “Jazz and blues, and
classic rock, is what got me into the guitar bug …, so this is kind of almost circling back around
to where I started.”
His debut release in 2019 FAKE JAZZ & THEME SONGS was the result of a friend inviting him
to play on a jazz festival bill in New Mexico. “I wrote a bunch of songs for the show, and they
turned out really well,” Gambill says. “That pushed me to get serious about doing my own music
again.”
He followed with album LCD during the fall of 2020. With the Single “Up,” meanwhile, Gambill
moves into what he calls “vintage Smooth Jazz,” revisiting his early influences, a throwback

sound, reminiscent of the R&B-tinged jazz records of the 70’s. Slim’s follow-up single, “Boom,”
was also added and spun daily on numerous Smooth Jazz stations, including Sirius/XM’s
“Watercolors,” and marked his first foray into the top 40 at Smooth Jazz Radio.
His next two singles, produced by Adam Hawley, move from smooth to funky to hard-hitting
groove. Onward and upward, as they say, as Slim Gambill continues his upward trajectory in
the world of Contemporary Jazz.

More about Slim Gambill …  
Interview with Slim, Guitar World 2020.