Greg Ruby

Guitarist, teacher and composer Greg Ruby "lives and breathes jazz guitar” states the Fretboard Journal. From acoustic swing to jazz manouche to surf music, Ruby inhabits many musical forms and brings his compositional voice to each of them.

Born in Toronto, Ruby’s early years were spent near Pittsburgh before moving to the West Coast in the late 1990’s. On the forefront of the Django Reinhardt renaissance, he co-founded the seminal group Hot Club Sandwich and was a member of Seattle’s Pearl Django. His rock-solid rhythm guitar work propelled the group through multiple recordings and extensive touring – including their debut at the Festival Django Reinhardt in Samois-sur-seine, France. With appearances at the burgeoning west coast Django festivals, Ruby accompanied jazz guitar greats 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. Beginning 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 resulting record was awarded Earshot Jazz Magazine’s “Northwest Jazz recording of the year.”

He has taught at Django in June, DjangoFest NW, The Seattle Jazz Night School and is the Guitar Week Coordinator for the Swannanoa Gathering. Ruby is a contributing writer to Acoustic Guitar Magazine and has authored Chord Melody Made Easy-ish (2024), the Oscar Alemán Play-Along Songbook Vol. 1 (2019), Frank D. Waldron: Seattle’s Syncopated Classic (2018), and the Pearl Django Play-Along Songbook (2005).