Guitarist and composer Jake Hertzog, an assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University of Arkansas has released his 10th studio album: The Ozark Concerto for Guitar, Jazz Orchestra and String Quartet on Zoho Music. Renowned jazz critic and author Bill Milkowski writes in the album's liner notes that "Hertzog's latest ambitious undertaking finds his considerable chops and creativity spilling over to a much larger canvas than he's ever worked on before." 

The recording is the result of a prestigious grant from South Arts' Jazz Road Creative Residency Program that Hertzog received in 2023 and features 23 musicians including 12 other faculty members in the Department of Music. 

"A major concept behind this project was bringing local talent together for this ensemble- it was an extra special experience getting to work with so many UARK colleagues on this project," said Hertzog "I think that blend of both jazz and classical players has given the group and the record a very special sound."

The Ozark Jazz Philharmonic, led by Susumu Watanabe with Jake Hertzog on guitar just left.

Music was composed by Hertzog and the ensemble was conducted by Susumu Watanabe, a former instructor of Jazz in the Department of Music, who also worked as an arranger and orchestrator for several movements of the concerto. In addition to Watanabe, UARK faculty performing on the recording included Tomoko Kashiwagi, Garrett Jones, Chris Peters, Rich Rulli, Cory Mixdorf, Michael Hanna, Sarah Hetrick, Rick Salonen, Er-Gene Khang, Tim MacDuff, and Pecos Singer.  

The album was released on Zoho Music, a well-known New York jazz record label, and is now available in both physical format and on all streaming and downloading platforms such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. 

Local collaboration was also a part of the production process, as the entire project was recorded at the Haxton Road Studies in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The Ozark Concerto Album would not be possible without the support of Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

About Jake Hertzog: Hertzog is a multi-genre award-winning guitarist and composer, whose career to-date has jazz, rock and classical new music styles. He has toured throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and India and performed and recorded with a diverse cadre of artists including Randy Brecker, Ivan Neville, Mike Clarke, Blondie Chaplin, Anton Fig, Corey Glover, Barry Altschul, Dave Leibman, Ingrid Jensen and many others. In 2023, he was honored with a Jazz Road Creative Residency Grant from the South Arts Organization, and Hertzog also received a 2023 Artist 360 Grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance for an upcoming project centered around Ozark folk music. 

He is a grand prize winner of the Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition and holds music degrees from the Berklee College of Music and The Manhattan School of Music in New York. 

In additional to his musical work, Hertzog also holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Arkansas. Hertzog' research has been presented at numerous international conferences been published in journals such as Artivate, and Jazz Education in Research and Practice, and Journal of Popular Music Education. In 2023, Hertzog was awarded a Research grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his innovative music ecosystem research Investigating the ways that collegiate jazz programs interact with jazz scenes in multiple cities. The results of multiple studies anticipated are in 2025-2026. www.jakehertzog.com 

Jake Hertzog, guitarist, composer and assistant professor of music.