Biography

Jeff Platz, New York, Boston area guitarist-composer, has toured extensively for the past decade throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has performed in various music festivals worldwide such as New York City's What is Jazz? festival, the Heidelberg jazz festival, Amsterdam's Crossing Borders festival, the Munster International Jazz festival in Munster Germany and most recently the Bia Jazz Festival in Milan Italy.

The Berlin-based music journalist Wolf Kampmann writes, "Platz's music is generous although never accidental. The secret of its uninhibited quality lies more in Platz's playful use of the familiar where intuition, feeling, and memory are the most important navigational instruments".

Jeff Platz received a grant from the city of Muenster Germany for Werkstadt Tage, a multimedia arts festival. Platz collaborated with visual artists to present a musical score for live improvisation featuring German bassist Meinrad Kneer and veteran jazz drummer Bill Elgart. In May of 2010, Jeff released his quartet cd "Panoramic" featuring New York City legend Daniel Carter on reeds and trumpet. Freejazz.com writes, "The ensemble is a wonderful example of cohesive playing and total sound, full of lyricism". In a recent live review, Downbeat magazine said: "Platz's group was truly amazing, on fire!".

Jeff has been working in Italy with ensembles featuring bassist Sylvia Bolognese, multi-reeds player Achille Succi, pianist Giancarlo Tossani, and alto saxophonist Fabio Delvo.

Platz has recorded for a variety of jazz music labels including Skycap Records, Evil Rabbit, Konnex, Glitch, and Setola di Maiale records.  In 2015 Jeff performed solo electric guitar improvisations in collaboration with choreographers Janet Aisawa and Beth Soll in the Spring Forward dance festival in New York City.

Currently, Jeff hosts a monthly improvised music series in Providence Rhode Island.  The Modern Sounds series features players from the Boston and New York City areas presenting original modern compositions and free improvisations.