Jerry Rojas
1958 in Kolumbien geboren, aufgewachsen in Obersiggenthal AG, Schweiz.
Mit 12 Jahren begann er, inspiriert von den Beatles, Gitarre zu spielen. Neben dem klassischen Gitarrenunterricht komponierte er eigene Songs. In den 80-iger Jahren entstand das Album "The Catcher in the Rye" mit der Sängerin Regi Sager. Neben Auftritten mit ihr erwarb sich Jerry Rojas eine reiche Live-Erfahrung auf den Strassen Londons und anderen Englischen Metropolen.
Intensivstudium an den Jazzschulen Luzern (Christy Doran), Basel (Bernhard Ley) und an der ACM Zürich (Marc Portmann) sowie bei David Beer. Diverse Workshops, unter anderem bei Robert Fripp, Mike Stern und anderen, verhalfen ihm seine Spieltechnik zu verfeinern und führten zur heutigen musikalischen Reife.
Jerry Rojas ist Mitglied vom Schweizer Musiker Syndikat (SMS).
English text
Jerry Rojas was born in Colombia, South America and grew up in Obersiggenthal AG, Switzerland.
At the age of 12 he started to play the guitar seriously. Inspired by the contemporary music of the Beatles and other rock musicians, he started to compose his own music and also took up a classical guitar education, playing along to the records of his heroes.
In the eighties he produced and composed a song collection entitled "The catcher in the Rye", which he performed together with Regi Sager, who is a well known vocalist today, and Bass-Guitarist Imbi Gassmann.
Later on other musicians joined this band to produce the next song collection entitled "Guernica", which was an antiwar production. Over the years he played together with other musicians like Paul Tienan, an Irish singer/songwriter, Enkh Jargal, a Mongolian singer and Violinist, and with the "Appenzeller Space Shuttle among others. Finally he concentrated on playing pure instrumental Jazz, the style of music in which he was trained at the Jazz school in the eighties.
Today Jerry Rojas plays with Beat Gisler in the formation 241 Unit and including Andy Oswald in 341 Unit, with the drummer Dominik Burger in the Duo Rojas/Burger, with Peter A. Schmid in Schmid/Rojas an in the Trio Schmid-Rojas-Manzanilla. With Efisio Contini and his wife Dodo Hug he plays in a new folk context in the band Acanto.
His Solo-CD will be release next, including the Co-Production of Enkh Jargal, Birgit Hauser, a fine female Jazz vocalist and his son Gabriel on cornet.
Jerry Rojas has an eclectic approach to music, which is influenced by the many different styles and sounds that he has played in the course of his musical career. He performs with a fine technique and is always looking for a new innovative sound. Jerry Rojas lives with his family in Zurich, Switzerland.
Jerry Rojas is a member of the Swiss Musicians Syndicate (SMS).