Jay grew up in the Coatesville area of South Eastern Pennsylvania. His musical life began at the age of eight when he began taking guitar lessons at a local music store. He continued lessons through the age of twelve. It was at the age of 13, when he heard an Eric Clapton solo on commercial radio, that he knew he truly wanted to approach the guitar seriously. He began his journey through the typical garage band jungle inspired by all of the contemporary rock artists of the day.

Jay’s evolution towards jazz and beyond was a gradual process over time. From rock he began to evolve into funk which led to funk-jazz, which led to commercial jazz. From this point, he found his way to jazz-rock fusion and finally arrived and explored the worlds of straight-ahead and bebop jazz. Now his music embraces all of these elements and more.  He is a very open-minded artist and appreciates all styles of music.  To the purist of any genre, Jay says, “It’s just another color on the musical palette”.

In his late teens and early twenties he studied from several local jazz players which opened his ears up to more melodic and harmonic possibilities. In his mid-20’s he went on the road for four years with a Hammond B3 based group, the Ron Smith Trio. The trio played jazz standards as well as quasi-commercial music. It was during this time period that he developed his appreciation for the classic organ trio group concept. Immediately following this four year stint, he began studying with world-renowned jazz guitarist, Pat Martino in South Philadelphia. Jay says that his time studying with Pat Martino was the most important thing he ever did educationally with the guitar. According to Jay, he basically relearned his entire concept of the guitar. He says that the unification of the guitar neck into one complete entity was the single most important thing he learned from Pat. He sums up his time spent studying with Pat by saying, “what a phenomenal experience it was”!

In the mid-80’s Jay formed an organ based trio called “In Transit” which focused on the jazz-blues genre. The group played the arrangements of many of the jazz greats such as Groove Holmes, Jack McDuff, Charles Earland, Jimmy Smith and others. In Transit lasted for ten years and it was during this time period that Jay began exploring his original music which continues to play an important role in his music to this day. His latest book/cd project, “Payin’ Your Dues With The Blues” was a direct out-growth of this time spent working with the jazz-blues idiom. He has also authored several other jazz guitar instructional books published through Mel Bay Publications, Inc.

In the early 90’s he joined the music faculty of Bucknell University and Susquehanna University where he teaches guitar mechanics, harmony-theory, fretboard integration in addition to general guitar playing.