Friday Session: Jazz Guitarist Tony Crisos

I don’t claim to know a lot about Jazz as a whole. My first job while living in Manhattan was at a Jazz Label/ Floating Jazz Festival company. I also worked for a cigar smoking Jazz lover who ran a record store in the Village. I got the ins and out on Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, the many faces of Coltrane, Buddy Rich and a few others including my personal favorite Chet Baker. But overall  I am a novice when it comes to the genre . Enter my friend Tony Crisos. Both student of life and teacher/performer of Jazz Guitar. To hear him talk about “true jazz” you would think it was one of the seven wonders of the world. Tony came to Hoboken today to hang out, catch up and take some pictures. After a stop at the corner Tai restaurant for some good food and conversation about his recent trip to Greece. We got down to business. My usual M.O. when having someone over is to find some good music. This time around I was treated to a live set of Tony’s best offerings. I had some issues early on in the session including getting used to using my new strip box and realizing a little late I had not reset my ISO to 100 after my last concert. (It turned out I shot the first few shots at ISO 1600) The biggest challenge turned out to be keeping Tony seated the first couple of minutes. The man is so full of energy and ideas. I could hardly get off a shot before he was jumping up and wanting to move to the next thing. However, once he started playing that guitar it was sheer concentration. It reminded me a lot of my Father when he played piano. He just went into his own world. There was no getting through. Tony is a great guy and talented beyond his years. He joked that our friendship was the only good thing that came out of our time with the company Freeze Frame. Sounds right to me.