THE HOUSE BAND
Graham Dechter
GUITAR
Graham Dechter is a guitarist, composer, and arranger from Los Angeles, born into a family of musicians. He began violin lessons at age 5 and was composing orchestral pieces as a child, which led him to the Idyllwild Arts Academy, where he discovered the guitar and studied improvisation with the bassist Marshall Hawkins. After a year in the Jazz Studies program at the Eastman School of Music, Jeff Hamilton invited him back to Los Angeles to take the guitar seat in the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra; at 19 he became the youngest member of the acclaimed orchestra. He has performed and recorded with Quincy Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Michael Bublé, Bill Charlap, Kurt Elling, Benny Golson, Regina Carter, Jimmy Heath, Nancy Wilson, Phil Woods, and Clark Terry, among others, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Monterey and Playboy Jazz Festivals. His albums as a leader are Right On Time, Takin' It There, which spent 22 weeks on the JazzWeek chart including 2 weeks at #1, and Major Influence, and he is featured on the soundtrack of La La Land.