Utah-born guitarist Dominic Walker has been bringing Tampa’s jazz scene to the mainstream for years. After hosting WUSF's beloved but departed “All Night Jazz,” he began bringing together incredible local musicians through live music.
Childhood musical roots
Walker’s initiation into music came playing the piano as a child.
"In my family, they had a rule, and I think it's such a good rule: you have to start piano when you're seven years old," Walker says. “And this is what I recommend to all parents getting their kids into music, give them a start date and an end date... When you're done, you never have to do it again if you don't want to."
Walker wanted to. He kept on playing music after his family's “end date,” eventually switching to the guitar.
"My sister had a boyfriend, and he came over to our house and was like, 'check this out' and played Stairway to Heaven, and then I was like, no, I'm gonna play guitar now," Walker says.
"I started with Led Zeppelin. That's all I wanted to do... I got Led Zeppelin IV and I learned all of the songs, well... tried to."
"I was a rock and roll player,” Walker adds. “I was in heavy metal bands and I was in a funk band called 'Cluster Funk,' and we won the Utah State Battle of the Bands when I was a senior in high school."
It would be a few more years before Walker fell in love with jazz.
A turn to jazz
"It was time for college and I wanted to go to college for guitar and you kind of had to pick jazz or classical,” Walker recalls. “I just picked jazz. I thought it was fun because it was hard, I probably didn't like it for a long time, for several years, and now I love it. Now I'm crazy about it."
Walker doesn't remember exactly when he started falling in love with jazz, but it was around the time he started listening to “the greats.”
“When you first start getting into jazz you hear Miles Davis's ‘Kind of Blue,’” he says. “And when you get into jazz guitar, you get Wes Montgomery's ‘Smoking at the Half Note’ and those are, like, unbelievable albums that are fun, amazing to listen to."
Education and career
Walker's first degree was a bachelor’s in music with an emphasis on guitar performance.
"I started at Utah State University," he says.
Walker initially studied genres like blues and bluegrass but found himself in university-led jazz bands. He worked on jazz in his private lessons and studied with Corey Christiansen, “one of the premier jazz guitar players today.”
Walker moved on to the University of South Florida, as did Christiansen. At USF, Walker earned a master's in music and jazz performance. He initially planned to get his degree and return to Utah. But Walker and his family remained in Tampa. He began playing at venues such as The Copper Shaker, Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe and Mandarin Heights. After some time playing guitar around town, Walker found his place.
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Steve Splane/ Provided by Dominic WalkerGuitarist Dominic Walker's musical journey has taken him from Utah to the Tampa Bay jazz scene."DI Coffee Bar, that's my favorite," he says. "I have fun with that because that's
my gig. I've been coming to DI Coffee for, like, ten years, just coming here to get coffee, and I came out one time and I saw a sign that said 'music wanted.'"
Walker signed up. His bimonthly spot eventually became a residency every Friday night.
"What I like so much about it is that
I bring in the great Tampa musicians, it's like, I have different people every week,” Walker says. “I would say less than half, maybe half, of my people are repeat people. But other than that I'm bringing in different people every week."
Local inspiration
After Walker's introduction to the jazz scene, he began to meet and play with incredible local musicians.
"There's a guy in St. Pete named John Lamb, and he was a bass player with the Duke Ellington orchestra in the Sixties for a couple of years... and I was fortunate enough after I graduated from school I got a regular gig with him," he says.
“There's another guitar player, Nate Najar, who is one of the premier jazz musicians in Tampa, and so I had a steady gig for a year probably where I played with them, and it was just guitar-guitar-bass, and I learned more there than I did all my school," Walker adds.
Walker says his time in Tampa has been a musical education. At gigs and jams with his peers, he would "show up and they would start playing." His fellow musicians always kept him on his toes.
"I would say, like, 'What tune are we playing?' and then they'd just like look at me, and then they'd just keep playing,” Walker says. “I'd had to learn all these tunes just by playing them."
Hopes for the future
When WUSF's “All Night Jazz” program ended, Walker didn't believe it was a sign about the viability of the Tampa jazz scene. It is alive and well, he says. New people just have to find it.
"Go bring down the average age of the population in the audience,” he says. “Find your people.”
There are ample opportunities to break into the local jazz scene, he says.
"One of the coolest things about jazz is like, okay, when you're listening to Led Zeppelin it's those same four guys, forever,” he says. “When you're listening to The Beatles it's those four guys. But when you're listening to Miles Davis, when it goes along, there are different guys... and those guys have their own projects. You can do the same thing here."
Walker gives an example.
"This weekend, I'm playing with John O'Leary,” he says. “John O'Leary also plays with James Suggs... you follow James Suggs and then you find someone else. Also, you follow the venues."
However you like to listen to your music, live or recorded, there is always a rabbit hole to fall down to discover incredible musicians like Walker. Give him a search, find all of his people, then find his people's people. Then, there it is, the ever-expanding network of Tampa jazz.
You can catch Dominic Walker every Friday from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at DI Coffee, 214 E. Davis Blvd., on Davis Islands in downtown Tampa.