Greg Ruby

“Greg Ruby lives and breathes jazz guitar” states the Fretboard Journal. From acoustic swing to jazz manouche to surf guitar, Ruby inhabits many musical forms and brings his compositional voice to each of them. Born in Toronto, raised near Pittsburgh, Ruby spent 20 years in the PNW before moving to New York in 2019. On the forefront of the Django Reinhardt renaissance, he co-founded the seminal group Hot Club Sandwich and later joined Seattle’s Pearl Django. With appearances at the burgeoning west coast Django festivals, Ruby accompanied jazz guitar greats including Howard Alden, Patrick Saussois, Frank Vignola, Gonzalo Bergara and John Jorgensen. By 2010, Ruby stepped out on his own and released Look Both Ways, an album of all original compositions which Dan Hicks (of the Hot Licks) declared “is a soundtrack in search of a movie.” The album reached #1 on the Roots Music Review radio chart. In 2015, Ruby’s attention turned to the roots of jazz in the Pacific Northwest with Syncopated Classic – a project which unearthed, restored and recorded the lost compositions of 1920’s Seattle jazz pioneer Frank D. Waldron. The record was awarded “Northwest Jazz recording of the year.” His most recent album, Corner Café, cowritten with accordionist Steve Rice, evokes mid-century Parisian swing bands.