You’ll find here information about my current activities, some accounting of my (musical) past, and a pretty good selection of tunes to listen to.

I am of the conviction that it’s meaningful and interesting, maybe even important (to me at least), to experience the way a performer/artist expresses their perspective and sense of self. I find it potentially connecting and enriching of how I experience their creative output.But, there’s no substitute for, or subordinating of, creative output. So if you want to get straight to some music I invite you wholeheartedly to skip my words and head straight to my guitar by following the “listen” link. After all, it’s really the point of things here. The pudding in which lies the proof, if you will (of what, exactly, I’m not sure).

My adolescence, musical and otherwise, was filled with a lot of music, but a general soundtrack could be encapsulated with two guitarists that informed pretty much every note I played, though never at the same time (back then). Jeff Beck and Jim Hall, occupying opposite ends of the dynamic and sonic spectrum available to a guitarist, and inventing/deploying musical lexicons completely distinct from one another, made their indelible marks on my musical path. They each resonated perfectly with my musical nature and, in an awe inspired way, I am humbled by them still.

For a time these influences seemed irreconcilable as I single-mindedly focused on just one, or the other. Slowly their spirit of adventure and play became their most apparent feature to me; that creative impulse they each displayed, to take whatever they brought to the table and deeply explore how it might converge with the moment and the music to make something compelling even more so.

On a good day I would hope that my own nature, which found resonance with these musical giants, emerges with it’s own identifiable voice, sincere and personal. Sometimes it has as much to do with not trying as it does with trying. It’s a path, and like any of life’s other important paths, it goes to the end, which I love.

A philosophy of “being open to and even seeking out the magical and spontaneous in all styles…” often finds Daryl departing from the mainstream to perform and/or record with a diverse array of musicians, including the Juno Award winning Andean group Ancient Cultures, Cuba’s Jorge Chicoy of Archer, Japanese drummer Motohiko “Toko” Hino, the VSO and the Chinese master musicians of Silk Road.

It all comes back to jazz though, and this is the passion that has carried Daryl across Canada as well as to Cuba, Japan, New York and the UK to work and tour with great musicians like Jorge Chicoy, Paul Jackson, Kenny Werner, John Stowell, Terumasa Hino and Jeff Berlin.

Daryl’s flowing, confident, harmonically rich style can be heard on numerous CD releases including those from his own groups; The Daryl Jahnke Quartet – “In Other Words”; Junction – “Self Portrait” and 3 Sisters – “Village”

Daryl has been involved in album production for many years. His work as a producer includes “When I Was a Bird” Laurel Murphy, “I Got Jazz for Christmas” – The X-Trio, “Village” – 3 Sisters, “Self Portrait” – Junction, “In Other Words” – Daryl Jahnke and “Blue Planet” – Jerry Legar.

As a producer Daryl has enjoyed repeated success as an applicant to the Canadian funding bodies of FACTOR, The Canada Council for the Arts and MITAP, securing funds for both recording and touring projects he was involved with.