MEET James
James Graff is a professional guitarist/vocalist/songwriter/instructor who lives in Pittsburgh, PA. He has over twenty years experience performing, recording and teaching hundreds of students, thousands of gigs, countless miles on the road, reflecting a life dedicated to reaching people with the joy of making music.
Jim began his exploration of music with the piano, a study which he continues to maintain to this day. He spent his time in grade school and high school playing various wind instruments, and began studying the guitar at the age of fourteen. While fluent in most contemporary guitar styles, his focus is in rock, pop, blues, jazz and R&B.
At eighteen, James began to play professionally, traveling around the United States and Canada with a variety of rock and pop acts. During this period he also did extensive session recording work in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York and Chicago. He spent some time in the mid 2000s as a songwriter for development deal artists at studios in both New York and Cleveland before leaving to pursue other opportunities.
“Working musician” is a term that perfectly suits Jim: teaching everything from electric guitar to ukulele, performing in a wide variety of both acoustic and electric ensemble settings and across all genres, while still finding the time to write and record original music and play a variety of recording sessions for both local and national artists. 2019 saw the release of his most recent original record, Take A Little, Leave A Little, a collaboration with vocalist and songwriter Amanda Noah.
Jim always tells his students: "You could live ten lifetimes and still not learn everything there is to know about the music of the world. We take the time we're given, play every day, and just try to put some music back out there. It's a glacial pursuit." To quote one of Jim's all time favorite guitar players, Robben Ford: "My final distillation of music: It's all just Louie Louie."