Album Notes

Jim Kanas' professional collaborations have included concerts, recordings and/or performances with other Midwest musicians such as harmonica/pianist, Howard Levy; violinists, Johnny Frigo, Randy Sabien and Peter Ostroushko; mandolinist, Don Stiernberg; bassist, Larry Gray; bluesmen, Eddy Snow and "Pistol Pete"; guitarist, Muriel Anderson; percussionist, Rubén P. Alvarez and others. He has been featured in concert at colleges, theaters, festivals and recorded and broadcast media throughout Illinois. Jim Kanas is a guitarist from Northern Illinois. Early on he found himself in the company of many jazz performers and educators including Pat Metheny, George Benson, Gary Burton and Stan Kenton to name a few. Also, at that time Jim was performing with then neighboring high school student/saxophonist Bill Evans sat-in with veteran blues man Eddy Clearwater. Jim won consecutive awards as a jazz guitarist in the Chicago land area and then later pursued his love and "hobby" of playing bluegrass, folk and traditional music. He then once again found himself surrounded by and jamming with influential musicians such as Steve Goodman,
Corky Siegel, the Nashville Cats, Allison Krause, Harvey Ried, Jethro Burns and others. Jim broadened out his performance base to include pedal steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, harmonica, mandolin, dobro and vocals and toured regionally as a sideman with many country oriented groups. Jim earned a unique interdisciplinarymusic performance degree from Northern Illinois University in
contemporary guitar skills, commercial music and American folk instruments. Jim now spends time as an artist-in-residence throughout Illinois with the Illinois Arts Council and other cultural arts organizations and performing and producing. He is an Illinois Arts Council Artstour artist and performs and records regularly as a soloist (singer/multi-instrumentalist), with the Jim Kanas Trio folk/bluegrass/western swing) and with the Jim Kanas Jazz Quartet.
In Jim Kanas' playing Doc Watson peacefully coexists with Jim Pass. Creating a distinct personal style from
such disparate influences isn't easy
to do. Jim pulls it off with aplomb."
- Pat Donahue, 1996
"Few musicians achieve success in both the jazz and folk realms."
Keisha Smith, Presenter