This week we feature guitarist Robert Conti.

I managed to see Robert Conti at the NAMM show in Anahiem California this past Saturday and was very impressed. Great chops, extremely fluid melody lines, brilliant choral work -- really a commanding presence on guitar. He was playing at the Hofner Guitar stage (opposite my friend Sid Jacobs). I only caught a handful of tunes but they were superbly performed.

Besides his regular 6 string talent, Robert has developed and also plays 8 string guitar.

"In 1992, Robert began to further explore the musical challenges and possibilities that an additional string might provide with the addition of a low "F#". After much research as to neck scale and intonation issues, Conti commissioned a Los Angeles Luthier to build his first Eight String Guitar, which was completed in March of 1993. During a visit to the B.C. RICH Exhibit at the 1995 NAMM Show, Bernie Rico, the President of B.C. RICH, was so impressed by the incredibly full sound of Conti's eight string instrument, that he decided to produce a further refined Eight String Guitar, utilizing Conti's original design as a working prototype for a production model."

Read on: http://www.robertconti.com/8string.html

From Bill's online bio:

Robert Conti was born in South Philadelphia, an area that has produced a respectable number of great musicians including many legendary string players. His interest in jazz guitar began in 1958 at the age of twelve. With the exception of a brief period of lessons from Philly guitar virtuoso, Joe Sgro, Conti is a self taught musician. However, he is quick to credit Sgro as pointing him in the right direction. In his early teen years, he began playing six-night engagements in a variety of show groups in the Philadelphia/New Jersey area, and spending his summers on the road. After graduating high school, Conti spent the next three years performing throughout the United States and Canada with a variety of show groups out of the Philly area.

While traveling to Philly after a Miami Beach engagement in 1965, Conti made an impromptu visit to a relative in Jacksonville, Florida. After three years of constant traveling, he was enticed by the beaches and Florida's relaxed lifestyle. That intended brief visit was the beginning of Conti's twenty-two-year residency in North Florida. During the next four years, he maintained a full teaching schedule and seized every opportunity to play jazz in North Florida.

In 1970, a series of extremely unusual circumstances thrust Conti into the securities business. During the following six years, Conti's talents as an account executive flourished, as he amassed a host of coveted financial industry awards for unparalleled business achievements. In fact, Conti is credited as the mastermind of a highly sophisticated business strategy that produced over five hundred million dollars of windfall profits to a publicly held Florida company. Additionally, he advanced the concept of the financial supermarket as early as 1974. Needless to say, lofty achievements that are inconsistent with the typical personality profile of an artist/jazz musician.

By late 1975, the time demands of the high tension business of stock trading had created a major void in his life. That void was the absence of his music. Having attained all of his personal goals in the corporate arena, and no longer enamored by corporate financial trappings, he decided to trade his three piece suits and return to music. In early 1976, he resumed teaching students, and focused his effort on regaining his previous technical facility. In May of 1979, he recorded two albums for the L.A. based Discovery record label. The results of those first recordings were a clear indication that Conti had indeed regained his technical facility.Several albums followed on the Discovery/Trend labels through the 1980s, including a 1981 guest appearance as a featured artist on the extraordinary arranger/conductor Gerald Wilson's "Orchestra Of The Eighties" - an album that featured an all-star roster of L.A.'s finest jazz musicians. He was also featured on one side of "The Living Legends" - an album with the late Joe Pass.

Read on: http://www.robertconti.com/bio.html

Doc Dosco is a jazz guitarist, composer and audio consultant living in Los Angeles, CA. His website is located at http://www.docdosco.com, where you can find more information on the 'What's Hot in Jazz Guitar' columns, audio clips of Doc's playing, and many additional features. Doc plays Heritage guitars and endorses the new Pignose Valve Tube Amps -- great for jazz (and anything else!)