DAVE STRYKER QUARTET

When Dave Stryker was ten years old, he was inspired by the Beatles to start playing guitar. His interest was rock and roll until he heard the albums My Favorite Things by John Coltrane and Beyond the Blue Horizon by George Benson. By seventeen, he was a jazz guitarist in Omaha. In 1978 he moved to Los Angeles where he took lessons from another Omaha native, Billy Rogers, and met organist Jack McDuff. After moving to New York City, he toured with McDuff in 1984–5, then spent ten years with saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

Stryker formed a band with Steve Slagle and a trio with Jared Gold and Tony Reedus (later McClenty Hunter and Billy Hart). He worked with the late Kevin Mahogany as sideman, composer, and arranger, appeared with him at Carnegie Hall, and toured with him in Europe and Japan. He has also worked with Eliane Elias, Javon Jackson, and Andy LaVerne.

He teaches jazz guitar at Indiana University and Montclair State University and at the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, the Litchfield Jazz Camp, and the Veneto/New School Workshop in Italy.

In 2018 Stryker began teaching jazz guitar online through the ArtistWorks music education website.