What People Are Saying
“MOSBY’S MUSIC SEEMS REVOLUTIONARY, GRACEFUL, ORGANIC…”.
— Jonathan Widran, JW Vibe
‘HE IS THE ONLY GUITARIST TO HAVE MASTERED THE TWO MOUNTAINS OF MUSIC; WESTERN HARMONY AND INDIAN RAGA.”
— Ustadt Imrat Khan, India's Ambassador of Music, Guru-ji to Brian Jones and George Harrison
“IN MY ENTIRE CAREER I’VE NEVER KNOWN ANYONE CAPABLE OF SUCH CLEAR VISION. MICHAEL HEDGES PROBABLY, BUT IT’S A VERY SMALL CLUB.”
— Will Ackerman, Founder Windham Hill Records
‘’TODD IS AMONG THE MOST UNIQUE CREATORS & PERFORMERS YOU WILL EVER HEAR.”
— Dick Metcalf, Rotcod Zzaj
Todd mosby bios
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Not many people know the rich and diverse musical heritage of Missouri. Bluegrass flows from the Ozark Mountains. Blues drifts in along the Mississippi River. Rock ‘n’ roll is part of the state’s DNA—after all, Missouri is the birthplace of Chuck Berry, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Jazz legends like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Pat Metheny are native sons. The “Show-Me State” has a lot to say for its musical legacy.
Among Missouri’s modern musical masters is composer, guitarist, and Imrat guitar inventor Todd Mosby. The St. Louis, MO-based artist’s latest album, American Heartland, is the second chapter in a musical travelogue that tone-paints the geography and spirit of America. It’s a sonic tribute to the only state that could produce a Todd Mosby.
“I have a lot of roots in where I grew up,” says Mosby. “It’s really isolated, but it’s also very rich in musical history and culture. You can absorb it all and still have the freedom to develop your own voice.”
Mosby is an award-winning musician who regularly collaborates with some of the most revered studio musicians in the industry. His music synthesizes the sounds of Missouri into a genre-defying, evocative language. A virtuoso musician with a painter’s imagination, Mosby uses jazz, folk, New Age, rock, blues, North Indian classical music, bossa nova, and more to create richly-textured geotemporal soundscapes.
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Todd Mosby Bio - 127 word count
Not many people know the rich and diverse musical heritage of Missouri. Bluegrass flows from the Ozark Mountains. Blues drifts in along the Mississippi River. Rock ‘n’ roll is part of the state’s DNA—after all, Missouri is the birthplace of Chuck Berry, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Jazz legends like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Pat Metheny are native sons. The “Show-Me State” has a lot to say for its musical legacy.
Among Missouri’s modern musical masters is composer, guitarist, and Imrat guitar inventor Todd Mosby. The St. Louis, MO-based artist’s latest album, American Heartland, is the second chapter in a musical travelogue that tone-paints the geography and spirit of America. It’s a sonic tribute to the only state that could produce a Todd Mosby.
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Todd Mosby Bio -100 word count
“I have a lot of roots in where I grew up,” says Mosby. “It’s really isolated, but it’s also very rich in musical history and culture. You can absorb it all and still have the freedom to develop your own voice.”
Mosby is an award-winning musician who regularly collaborates with some of the most revered studio musicians in the industry. His music synthesizes the sounds of Missouri into a genre-defying, evocative language. A virtuoso musician with a painter’s imagination, Mosby uses jazz, folk, New Age, rock, blues, North Indian classical music, bossa nova, and more to create richly-textured geotemporal soundscapes.
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Mosby is an award-winning musician who regularly collaborates with some of the most revered studio musicians in the industry. His music synthesizes the sounds of Missouri into a genre-defying, evocative language. A virtuoso musician with a painter’s imagination, Mosby uses jazz, folk, New Age, rock, blues, North Indian classical music, bossa nova, and more to create richly-textured geotemporal soundscapes.
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Not many people know the rich and diverse musical heritage of Missouri. Bluegrass flows from the Ozark Mountains. Blues drifts in along the Mississippi River. Rock ‘n’ roll is part of the state’s DNA—after all, Missouri is the birthplace of Chuck Berry, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Jazz legends like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Pat Metheny are native sons. The “Show-Me State” has a lot to say for its musical legacy.
Among Missouri’s modern musical masters is composer, guitarist, and Imrat guitar inventor Todd Mosby. The St. Louis, MO-based artist’s latest album, American Heartland, is the second chapter in a musical travelogue that tone-paints the geography and spirit of America. It’s a sonic tribute to the only state that could produce a Todd Mosby.
“I have a lot of roots in where I grew up,” says Mosby. “It’s really isolated, but it’s also very rich in musical history and culture. You can absorb it all and still have the freedom to develop your own voice.”
Mosby is an award-winning musician who regularly collaborates with some of the most revered studio musicians in the industry. His music synthesizes the sounds of Missouri into a genre-defying, evocative language. A virtuoso musician with a painter’s imagination, Mosby uses jazz, folk, New Age, rock, blues, North Indian classical music, bossa nova, and more to create richly-textured geotemporal soundscapes.
Mosby attended Berklee College of Music as an undergrad, Webster University as a graduate student, and, for 13 years, studied classical North Indian music with Ustadt Imrat Khan. He is one of the few musicians in America who has mastered western composition, jazz improvisation, and Indian raga music forms and incorporates them freely as a part of his musical language. In addition, Mosby has the distinction of being the only guitarist to become a member of the famed Imdhad Khani Gharana of musicians, India’s most prestigious family of sitar musicians dating back 500 years to the courts of the Mughal Emperors.
To bridge Indian and Western musical traditions, Mosby was pivotal in the original design of the Imrat guitar, an 18-string hybrid instrument that blends the timbres and techniques of sitar and guitar.
Mosby crafts sophisticated yet accessible music, in the tradition of artists like Steely Dan, Wes Montgomery, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell. His compositions feature compelling melodic structures and complex instrumental passages that appeal to both seasoned musicians and casual listeners alike.
He’s worked extensively with world-renowned, multi Grammy-winning contemporary folk producer/guitarist and Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman, and two-time Grammy-winning producer Jeff Weber who returns for American Heartland. Other marquee names include session musicians saxophonist Tom Scott, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, percussionist Luis Conte, and bassist Leland Sklar. Additional contributors boast credits that, among others, include everyone from Frank Ocean to John Lennon.
Over the course of his career, Mosby has released seven albums and one single, along the way winning two ZMR Broadcasters Awards, a USA Songwriters Award, and earning the privilege of becoming a Grammy voter. He has earned raves from India’s Music Ambassador Ustadt Imrat Khan; 17-time Grammy Nominee and jazz guitar legend Mike Stern; and Berklee College of Music President, 7-time Grammy Award Winner, and jazz legend, Gary Burton.
American Heartland is a culmination of Mosby’s journey, thus far. The 11-track collection traverses contemporary jazz, New Age, contemporary folk, blues, solo acoustic guitar, and jazz-rock. Compositions feature lush orchestration, sultry female vocalise, driving horn sections, stately strings, and scene-setting minimalistic lyrics. “I studied poetry, and I like to use words to convey images,” Mosby says.
Those images evoke the soul of Missouri. The rolling hills, the golden fields, the star-filled skies, the lush greens, the sound of distant thunder storms, and the breathtaking sunrise over the Ozarks. American Heartland also recalls the work of French impressionists where they seek to elevate everyday moments with artistic renderings of sprawling landscapes.
Mosby has lived in Missouri his whole life. He remembers waking up at 5:00 AM to feed the horses, cattle, and chickens on his family’s farm. A ritual he immortalizes on the earthy and elegant American Heartland solo guitar piece,“On The Farm.”
A world away but still in Missouri, Mosby can recall discovering Indian ragas at a local retail bookstore. The expanded palette of sound offered by this music would prove profound to his later artistic development. Mosby’s musical world was also shaped through playing various instruments in bluegrass bands, and discovering jazz through his buddy’s mother record collection. She once dated legendary jazz producer/label impresario Norman Granz (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Billie Holiday). Granz gave her his whole collection of the iconic live recording series he produced, Jazz at the Philharmonic.
Mosby’s individualistic and panoramic artistic perspective is on full display on American Heartland. The album’s opening track, “All The Stars Tonight,” is a shimmery bossa nova piece inspired by stargazing and spiral galaxies. “Witchi Tai” is an original musical rendition of the Native American phrase, reimagined in two parts. Part one is a New Age instrumental, and part two is driving 1970’s acoustic-rock with haunting vocalise.
“Clouds Above Golden Fields” offers a Satie-and-Debussy-inspired contemporary chamber folk atmosphere. Mosby’s imaginative interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” features ethereal female vocals, alongside a cellist and bassist Michael Manring.
The samba tune “Palomino” is inspired by Mosby’s childhood spent riding horses, and his love for drawing them. It’s a harmonically rich, galloping bossa nova in the style of Antônio Carlos Jobim, but with passages featuring unexpected chord changes. The title track, “American Heartland,” is a contemporary jazz piece steeped in the rustic warmth of Missouri.
American Heartland was recorded at the iconic Village Studios in Los Angeles with Grammy-winning engineer Clark Germain and multi Grammy-winning producer Jeffrey Weber. The Village is a legendary facility that has hosted history-making sessions with Steely Dan, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Frank Zappa, Elton John, and John Mayer, among many others.
Mosby will continue his travelogue series with the third and final entry, a collection of Northeastern sketches. Though this program of albums features sonic snapshots of beloved locations, no place holds more meaning to Mosby than Missouri. “Every tune brings forth beautiful memories, sonic descriptions and emotive landscapes. American Heartland feels like home,” Mosby says.
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Reviews
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Todd Mosby: Land Of Enchantment
by George W. Harris • October 12, 2023No clutter on these frets…
Guitarist Todd Mosby creates modern smooth sounds with a mix and match team that includes Vinnie Colaiuta/dr, Dapo Torimoro/p and Rhonda Smith/b. At times, there’s an almost Steely Dan feel to the tunes, as on the folksy and clever “Georgia’s World” with Laua Vall’s voice while the team gets funky around Smith’s bass line on “Place In The Sun’.
Mosby has a George Benson feel to his tone and licks as he breezes on ”Moonrise Samba” and a beautiful sound for “A Distant Light”. He plays a bluesy read of “Norwegian Wood” with an acoustic Imrat guitar, and gives a James Taylorish feel to the classic “By The Time I Get To Phoenix’. - George Harris, Jazz Weekly -
Todd Mosby: Land Of Enchantment
By BT Fasmer - May 12, 2023
“Wherever one goes in the Southwest, one encounters magic, strength, and beauty,” Ansel Adams wrote. Inspired by the same landscape – From jazz, jazz fusion and samba to Bossa-nova and folk-rock, the album’s genre defying style makes sure that there is something here for everyone. I enjoy how the sound seems to represent the landscape, from the baking A Place in the Sun to the reflective By The Time I Get To Phoenix. There is a lot to discover in-between with almost limitless replay value. Land of Enchantment has magic enough for several releases. Stylish, playful and cool, the album underlines the deep connection between geography, art and culture.
Land of Enchantment will be released on July 7, 2023.
Todd Mosby has created a new musical syntax integrating Indian classical music and Western music. His 13-year study of traditional North Indian music with his neighbor and guru-ji Ustadt Imrat Khan led to the development of acoustic and electric versions of the Imratguitar, a hybrid sitar-guitar. His most recent albums are On Eagle Mountain (2016), Open Waters (2019) and Aerial Views (2020). -
TODD MOSBY; Interview
Growing up in Missouri near St. Louis, how old were you when you started to play jazz guitar and what was most helpful in your personal development as a guitarist?
I first started playing/studying Jazz guitar my first year at college in Salt Lake City, Utah when I was 18. There was a great music program there which was moving to Grove Music school in LA. the next year. I decided to go to Berklee College of Music for the next three years to continue my studies in earnest. It was a great experience seeing so many great Jazz musicians perform live. It had a lasting impact. Bill Evans, Joe Pass, Pet Metheny, Wether Report, Pat Martino, Kenny Burrell, Mike Stern were all people i would go out and see perform live in small clubs or concert halls.It appears that you have Los Angeles connections. Am I correct?
Yes, in 2016 I was in LA for a music conference and met veteran producer Jeffrey Weber (Emily Remler, David Benoit, Freddie Hubbard, Tom Scott, Chick Corea, Stanley Clark, Kenny Burrell, McCoy Tyner) thru a friend. We began initial talks for a possible record at that time. I had just completed my first album Eagle Mountain with Will Ackerman/Tom Eaton producing. After a successful run of three albums (2016-2021), I wanted to move my music and recordings in a new direction. This is when I re-connected with Jeff Weber and in May of 2022, we began weekly conversations on scope of the project, tune selection, instrumentation, band members, coordination, etc. A great producer has access to great musicians. Jeff had this and more. He has been with his team for over 20 years. He produced some of my favorite jazz recordings including the last and best album of Emily Remler, This Is Me. In July, the band was finalized with some of my heroes that Jeff uses including Tom Scott, Vinnie Colaiuta and Rhonda Smith. He produced two of Tom Scotts records which are on his label and received Grammy nominations. All of the players on Jeffs call list have a long history with him.
Did you study with any well-known musical personalities, or are you self-taught?
I have been mentored and studied my whole life. Ultimately, it is up the individual to absorb, apply, research and discover insights thru time spent on your instrument. In that sense everyone is self-taught. Formal studies began at Westminster College in salt Lake City for one year and then at Berklee College of Music in Boston for three years. Years later I finished with an MM in Composition in St. Louis at Webster University. In between I had private teachers, all notable. Here is a list: Private Studies & Mentors Include: Guitar - Mike Stern, Jim Kelly, Rob Block, Rick Haydon, Fareed Haque; Improvisation - Gary Burton, Ed Tomasi, Imrat Khan; Composition - Dr. Roland Jordan, Orchestration - Ben Newhouse, Arranging - Michael Gibbs, Bob Chestnut, Dan Moretti. Classical North Indian Studies: - 13 years traditional with Ustadt Imrat Khan - India’s foremost proponent of sitar and Brian Jones and George Harrison’s first sitar teacher.To you, what are three of the most influential jazz guitar albums and why? (give details)
1) Montgomeryland - Wes Montgomery - These were some of the first Wes solos I took down. 2) Grantstand - Grant Green - Grant is a master of the extended Jazz blues forms. 3) Natural Elements - Shakti - John Mclaughlin - Acoustic fusion at its highest level with virtuoso jazz and Indian raga performances.Tell how Windham Hill Records founder, Will Ackerman, effected your playing and career.
Will is an inspiration and guiding light. He believes in strong melodies, streamlined forms, developed ideas. Every single note counts and he prefers a unique, melodic statement over fast phrases always. The experience and confidence gained as a grammy level world class recording artist and composer is incalculable. Will and Tom came to trust my musical insights and we developed a very nice symbiotic relationship with the recording, music creation and mixing process. They then turned me on to the various promotional aspects of releasing a record.
Tell us about your goals in making your new album Land of Enchantment with Tom Scott on saxophone, pianist Dapo Torimiro, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and other fine musician
The goals for this new album are multi-faceted. The first goal was to break me into a new market, from New Age into Contemporary Jazz so I would get noticed. Although I have had much success in the New Age/ Contemporary Instrumental genre, we needed to make an impact out of the gates into a more Contemporary Jazz sort of genre. Jeff selected tunes from my catalogue dating back to 2013 to current and had me write a new one for the recording.He wanted to showcase my writing and performance abilities across a wide musical spectrum. He felt players like Tom Scott, Vinnie Coliauta, Rhonda Smith, Dapo Totimiro and others would be elevate my credibility to a new level and give credence to those not familiar with my previous work.
