Jack Kovacs was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1988 and lived there for his whole life before coming out to Los Angeles, California in order to study guitar at the University of Southern California. Jack started taking piano lessons at the age of 8, but he switched to the guitar when he was 12. All his life, his interests had been all over the place, changing at a rate that seemed almost day-to-day; so of course guitar could have easily become just another passing phase. It was not.
Throughout high school, he tried different niches: sports teams, academic clubs, and theatre, for example. But all through this time he stuck with guitar, including attending summer programs at Columbia College of Chicago and the Berklee College of Music 5-week in Boston. There he was introduced to an incredible amount of talented musicians his age. It was at this time that he began to think about the possibilities of studying his instrument more rigorously. He began to immerse himself into the instrument, which proved to be a slow but rewarding process.
Jack stopped taking group teen guitar lessons and moved to private lessons, eventually studied with Bob Palmieri, a Chicago great teaching at DePaul University’s School of Music. Bob taught him not just jazz guitar, but about the guitar as an instrument, and it is this approach that he continues to take when he approaches any genre, whether it be rock, blues, jazz, fusion, or pop. This all coincided with a time that Jack was beginning to discover the artists that would become some of his greatest influences, who ranged from the early pop music of George Gershwin, to the be-bop sounds of Wes Montgomery, to the classic rock guitarists of the 60s and 70s, to more modern guitar players like Wayne Krantz and Scott Henderson.
After being accepted to the USC Thornton School of Music, Jack has been living in Los Angeles pursuing his Bachelors of Music Degree. On top of trying to keep up with the incredible talent in his program, Jack plays in various groups and ensembles around Los Angeles. He was most recently a member of “Wire Choir,” a collegiate guitar tradition that is more than thirty years old, which he also wrote some arrangements for, and is a current member of the Superaxe ensemble. In 2006, he was named outstanding soloist at the Rootabega Jazz Festival at Knox College. On top of just gigging around LA, he is a teacher, composer, arranger, and studio musician looking to build up his connections every day.
Aside from music consuming almost every moment of his life, Jack loves everything and anything Chicago related (ok, maybe not the winters, but that’s why you come to LA, right?). He is a hopelessly hopeful Cub fan (even appearing in a few of their commercials back in the days of Ryne Sandberg and Harry Caray) and during the days of the 1990s Chicago Bulls he dreamed of being the NBA’s very first 4’10” 9-year-old power forward. Inspired by his love of eating, Jack has also taken to cooking… to varying degrees of success. He is also an avid horror movie lover (especially those of the B-variety) and could re-watch every single minute of Arrested Development for the rest of his life.
