Jefferson Pitcher is a guitarist, improviser, songwriter, and documentary filmmaker from northern California. Pitcher grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and spent much of his ‘musical youth’ involved in the Berkeley punk rock scene at 924 Gilman Street, which still influences him today.

While much of his work explores free improvisation he also draws heavily from his love for melody, the simplicity of minimalist composers, a long love of flamenco, and a history of performing and recording in the west coast indie-rock scene as a singer-songwriter, where he fronted the band Above the Orange Trees.

Since that time Pitcher has released numerous projects with Standard Recording Co. (USA), Digitalis Recordings (USA), Camera Obscura (Australia), Tape Drift (USA), Moonpalace (Spain), Dutch East India (USA), Words on Music (USA), Tract Records (USA), and his own Mudita Records (USA). He has performed and recorded with many artists including Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Okkyung Lee, Scott Amendola, Christian Kiefer, J. Matthew Gerken, Denison Witmer, Sarah Weaver, Mark Dresser, Mike Bullock, Tim Keiper, David Gibson, Kristina Forester, Ron Guensche & many more. He has twice found himself on NPR's All Things Considered and has been well reviewed by the likes of Pitchfork and Harp Magazine.

In 2008, Pitcher completed an MFA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he studied improvisation with Pauline Oliveros. He is married to author and visual artist Keri Smith, and can often be found out on some hilly, country road riding his bicycle daydreaming about the minutiae of guitars and the endless wonder of California.

Above photo taken by Michelle McCarron.

Downloadable CV
(pdf format)

Downloadable Press photos (300 dpi)
Color 1
Color 2
B&W 1
B&W 2

Other photos
(low-res)