Jack West & Walter Stauss Acoustic Guitar Duo

A prolific musician, composer, and, well, inventor, Jack West is a singular guitarist with an immediately recognizable sound. Wielding a custom-built eight-string acoustic guitar with uncommon rhythmic dexterity and a unique percussive style, he earned widespread acclaim with six albums of original music released between 1997-2003, mostly featuring his band Curvature. West’s knack for crafting glistening, minutely detailed soundscapes full of surprising twists and inventively inviting textures prompted NPR to describe his work as “a whole new sub-genre of jazz.”


West makes a stunning return to the studio with 2026’s Guitars On Life, a captivating collaboration with fellow acoustic guitar explorer Walter Strauss, best known for his extensive work with Malian artists (particularly kora master Sidiki Diabaté and ngoni innovator Mamadou Sidibe). With West supplying the bass, chords, and percussion lines of an entire rhythm section, his bass notes popping due to a thumb pick of his own invention, Strauss weaves expertly filigreed melodies that alternately careen around and caress West’s buoyant foundation.


More than a reintroduction, Guitars On Life marks West’s return to recording and performing after a successful stint in the solar power industry. During his time away he also devoted himself to the design and creation of the Gliss guitar, a radical new acoustic instrument that allows a player to change a string’s pitch over an octave in real time. Look for West to introduce the project in 2027 with the album State of Gliss. While opening up new musical horizons, West is also celebrating of his past with The Curvature Retrospective, an anthology drawn from his five Curvature albums. The double vinyl and streaming release features remastered tracks that showcase the surging energy, refined textures and fierce interactivity that first brought West renown.