Ant Law

“Ant Law is an innovator" The Guardian

British guitarist Ant lives in London and leads his own group, dubbed “An exciting band to hear live" by John Fordham. In 2013 their debut 'Entanglement' (33Jazz) was released to great acclaim, followed by 'Zero Sum World' (Whirlwind Recordings) in 2015 and 'Life I Know' (Edition Records) in 2018. This release was very warmly received by the press, receiving 5 star reviews, making numerous “best of 2018" lists, receiving airplay in the UK, Europe, Australia, and hundreds of thousands of plays (and counting) on Spotify. It is being described as “career-defining". The next chapter has begun with the release of “The Sleeper Wakes” (Edition Records) on July 24th.

Ant plays in Tim Garland's band with Jason Rebello & Asaf Sirkis, featuring on albums 'Songs To The North Sky', 'Return To The Fire' & 'ONE' which was shortlisted for a Grammy and won the Jazzwise Best Album award. Ant is the “L” in Trio HLK who record/tour with Dame Evelyn Glennie. He has worked with other notables Cory Henry, Thomas Gould and is featured from time to time in “Total Guitar", “Guitar Techniques" & “Guitarist” magazines. In the latter he recently made a list of “10 Astounding Virtuosos". Ant has an interest in Physics, which he read as a scholar at Edinburgh University.

Ant was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he lived until the age of 16. From a young age he was exposed to early blues and rock 'n' roll, as well as Arabic music. He began playing piano and guitar around the age of 8. Throughout his teens he gravitated towards the guitar. A history teacher gave him a video of Stevie Ray Vaughan playing live at the El Mocambo, which was a huge influence, along with videos of Guns 'n' Roses, Queen, and later on Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

Other than the classical piano training, Law's only formal schooling in music was one semester on scholarship at Berklee College Of Music, Boston. The semester was completed in the middle of a Physics degree he was reading at Edinburgh University, also as a scholar. It was whilst studying the degree that he became obsessed with jazz and played his first jazz gigs. By this point he had discovered and started to use Perfect 4ths tuning for the guitar. In a case of convergent evolution however, other players (like Stanley Jordan and Tom Quayle) had also discovered and were using this same tuning. Allan Holdsworth has said that if he could start again, he would tune this way. Ant wrote a book introducing the tuning entitled “3rd Millennium Guitar" which is published by Mel Bay.

After completing the degree he concentrated on make a living playing guitar, eventually moving to London and immersing himself in the scene there. He also lived in NYC for a season to study with his heroes.

“What a game changer he can be” The Guardian