Howard Hart

 

 

Howard has been writing, recording, and teaching in the world of guitar for many years. His initial demo "Fatigue Free" caught the attention of John Stix at Guitar Magazine, who promptly signed Howard to the Guitar Recordings label. After contributing two cuts to the "Burnin'" CD, he also provided a track for the "Guitar On The Edge" CD Vol.1/No.4, which can now be found newly remixed and remastered on his own "Dancing Madly Backwards" release.


Howard has appeared in Guitar Magazine, Guitar World, and Guitar Player; as well as Southern California's BAM and Mean Street publications. Along with creating his unique brand of instrumental guitar music, he is also the creator and founder of HHGI Guitar Instruction, which has quickly become recognized as one the most innovative and forward thinking in its field - He has literally given personal correspondence lessons to students from all over the world!


In 1999 Howard released "Mind Grind" - a unique blend of high energy rock meets scorching emotional ballads and over-the-top fusion... The track "Crying Hunger" quickly climbed to the top of MP3.COM's instrumental rock charts; enjoying an extended stay and becoming one of the most popular songs of 1999! In November of 2000 it once again jetted to the top of the charts, along with several other songs in his catalog.

The Rasa project is turning out to be a wonderful outlet for me... giving me the much desired opportunity to play some jazz guitar, which I love doing.
 
I've been doing my solo instrumental thing for sometime now, which focuses more on fusion and jazz-rock based material - But Rasa is my one opportunity to just play some smooth jazz... And I'm looking forward to more music in this vein.
 

Basically, Rasa started out as an East meets West project that was going to encompass a strong jazz element (and indeed, many of the cuts on the first CD contain jazz guitar solos and so on...) - But recently it has moved in a more solid smooth jazz zone... Which is wonderful of course, as it gives me the opportunity to flex this side of my playing.

 
More material is on the way; all of which is in the smooth jazz vein, and will feature plenty of guitar. But Rasa will also begin to branch out by adding other elements, such as sax, more expanded percussion, etc. - But the smooth jazz style is now here to stay.
 
The current CD "Slow Distance" will eventually feature all smooth jazz tracks... It has several now, but the more fusion-oriented cuts will soon be replaced with the newer material.