Dave Corbus Trio

Electric guitarist Dave Corbus was born in Evanston, IL, on March 27, 1960, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Glenview. A largely self-taught musician who played along with records, he first heard rock guitar heroes including Chuck Berry, Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, along with blues legends Freddie King and Hound Dog Taylor. But after the fact, jazz plectrists Wes Montgomery and Pat Metheny as well as Clifford Brown, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman came into his consciousness. The tandem of Metheny and Gary Burton had a most telling effect after hearing them in concert, as did concert performances by Charles Mingus and Eddie Harris. Corbus attended two semesters at Boston's Berklee School of Music in 1976 and 1978, and he moved to New York City in 1979, doing blues sessions at Dan Lynch's on Second Avenue. In the mid-'80s, he dove into the Big Apple jazz scene at Augie's (later S.M.O.K.E.) and was a member of the fusion combo Business of Blues. He was a sideman for Chico Hamilton, Ira Coleman, and Essiet Okun Essiet. In his formal training, Corbus attended New York University, earning a B.A. in music composition, focusing on classical repertoire. Then the guitarist traveled to and gigged in Colorado, and has lived in the metropolitan Denver area since his initial arrival in 1993. As a first-call guitarist in the Rocky Mountains, he has worked with Red Holloway, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Plas Johnson, Lewis Nash, Javon Jackson, Bobby Watson, and Joey DeFrancesco. He leads his own trio with Lindsey Horner and Lieven Venken, is part of the cooperative trio 3ocity with organist Pat Bianchi and drummer Todd Reid, and has worked with Denver jazz players Ken Walker and Billy Tolles. ~ Michael G. Nastos, Rovi