Acoustic pianist Jim Hudak embraces eclecticism.  His fifth contemporary instrumental solo album, Bridging Textures, contains elements of cutting-edge new age music, jazz, Aaron Copland-esque classical, old-timey waltzing, bluesy boogie-woogie, uplifting church music, galloping stride piano and a myriad of subtle pop and rock inflections.

A composer and arranger of thousands of songs during his career, a record store manager for five years, and an executive for the music performing rights society ASCAP for 14 years, Hudak (pronounced who’-dack) says one of the most important lessons he’s learned in the music business is to make each tune different to best hold the listener's attention.

For more information on Jim Hudak, go to his website (www.jimhudak.com).  His music can be purchased at various online stores including www.cdbaby.com and www.amazon.com.

Produced by Will Ackerman, the legendary musician and founder of Windham Hill Records, Bridging Textures features the interplay between Hudak’s acoustic nine-foot Yamaha concert grand piano (and his acoustic guitar on two tunes) and a variety of other musicians, including fretless bassist extraordinaire Michael Manring (Michael Hedges, Suzanne Ciani, Alex de Grassi), violinist Tracy Silverman (Jim Brickman, Turtle Island String Quartet), saxophonist Mary Fettig (Stan Kenton, Marian McPartland), percussionist Derrik Jordan (Angela Bofill, Will Ackerman), Cajun accordionist Suzy Thompson (California Cajun Orchestra, Maria Muldaur), and bassist Dennis Tuohino (who plays regularly in eight different San Francisco Bay Area bands).

“This is not your parents’ piano music,” explains Jim.  “I specifically am trying to create contemporary instrumental piano-oriented music for the 21^st century, for a new era of music lovers who grew up hearing many different genres and enjoy real musicians on actual instruments rather than synthesized reproductions.  A musician with many years of experience and their unique personality can never be duplicated with a synthesizer.  Real instruments generate a special feeling and warmth.”

Jim Hudak enjoys all styles of music including pop, rock, folk, alt-country, jazz, new age, church hymns and classical, and those influences quietly creep into his music.  He has studied piano, guitar, vocal techniques and composition at eight colleges around the country (including Portland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and San Francisco) and has earned a degree in Recording Arts.

Currently, Hudak is one of the most popular pianists in the San Francisco area playing hundreds of shows annually (he had 57 gigs last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas) at clubs, resorts, hotels and wineries.  Fans of Hudak's performances and first four albums know him as a master of transforming rock and pop classics into enjoyable contemporary instrumental arrangements.  Although those CDs contained a handful of original compositions, Bridging Textures is his first recording exclusively featuring his material.

His first two solo albums, like Bridging Textures, showcased his piano playing in combination with a few additional, mostly-acoustic instruments.  The first CD, Cherish, had three Hudak originals mixed with stunning arrangements of well-known songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan.  The second album, Gratefully Yours, featured Hudak’s versions of 11 tunes by the Grateful Dead and one original piece (“Rock Stars”).  Jim’s next two albums were solo piano recordings.  The appropriately-titled Solo Piano contained two originals plus many classics penned by such legendary songwriters as Rodgers & Hart, Jimmy Webb, David Gates, Dylan and Eric Clapton.  The next outing, titled Vintage Piano, had four originals interspersed with material from Tom Petty, James Taylor, Elton John, Stevie Nicks and REM.

When performing, Hudak stretches where few instrumental pianists tread, tackling material by alt-country songwriters such as Jerry Jeff Walker, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons and John Prine.  Hudak generally covers what he grew up listening to, but he’s also added songs to his shows by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, among countless others.

Born next to Tombstone, Arizona at the Fort Huachuca Army Base, Jim came from a musical family (his last name means “the musician” in Slovakian).  His father played blues and boogie-woogie piano and his father’s sisters all performed music (one taught Jim to play piano).   Music exploded in Jim’s life when he was ten-years-old growing up in Portland, Oregon.  That year he learned to play ukelele, then acoustic guitar and finally piano.  He began with folk music like the Kingston Trio and Pete Seeger, but soon got an electric guitar and turned to rock ’n’ roll from The Beatles to The Byrds.  At age 11 Hudak was already performing at church, weddings, funerals, school functions and parties.

Jim attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland for two years studying classical guitar and music theory, but soon discovered the finger-picking of Doc Watson and Leo Kottke, and left school to become a professional musician.  After a couple years Hudak took a day job in a record store which opened his ears to many other genres of music.  While continuing to write songs and perform regularly, Hudak then became a licensing executive for ASCAP, a company that monitors and collects performing royalties for songwriters, and was based in Seattle, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Nashville.  He also spent a year as a Vice President at a similar company (SESAC) in Nashville, before moving to San Francisco in 1997 and resuming a fulltime career as a musician.  Jim’s musical influences have continued to expand to include acts such as Steely Dan, Ray Charles and Randy Newman.

In the late Eighties, Jim released a folk and alt-country album (The Hudaks Connected) with his brother Don featuring all original material except for one song by The Dillards.  Jules Alexander, co-founder of The Association, produced some of the tunes.  On the recording were such top players as banjo-picker Herb Pederson (Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne), pedal-steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness (The Byrds, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton), keyboardist George Sipl (Eric Carmen) and bassist Dale Peters (The James Gang, Joe Walsh).

Hudak chose Will Ackerman to produce Bridging Textures because “I had always admired his music, his productions and how he made Windham Hill one of the most successful independent labels of all time.”  Ackerman has produced many highly-successful pianists (George Winston, Liz Story, Scott Cossu, Philip Aaberg), acoustic guitarists (Alex de Grassi, Michael Hedges) and folk-singers (John Gorka, Patty Larkin).  Hudak traveled to Vermont to record his piano parts in Ackerman’s Imaginary Road Studios.

Bridging Textures begins with “Running Stream.”  “I live near Mount Diablo and go hiking there a lot, and I see where quite a few streams start their long run down the mountain.”  Regarding the tune “Wild Goose,” Jim says, “The wild goose knows when it’s time to fly, which serves as a metaphor for when it’s time to move on.”  Hudak wrote “Like To Go With You” as a vocal tune when he broke up with a girl while he was in college, and originally released it on the B-Side of a 45 that featured an oil-shortage tune titled “Kiss Your Gas Goodbye.”  Several of the pieces on the CD were inspired by lost loves – “Out Of My Head,” “That Special Light” and “Bittersweet Passion.”  Jim got the title for “Put Some Money Away Boy” after hearing that advice from his father.  The pieces “Steppes I” and “Steppes II,” according to Hudak, “are the same tune played completely differently” and evolved out of a 1981 jam session.  The bluesy-boogie at the end of “Steppes I” is a tribute to Hudak’s father.  The album ends with the short “Song of Achievement” which Jim wrote when he was 12-years-old and playing organ in church.

“I have always had a hunger for musical knowledge, and I love a wide and diverse selection of different musical acts,” explains Hudak.  “My eclectic tastes are reflected in the music I write, how I arrange the music, and the musicians I choose to work with.  I find the audience appreciates it when an artist stretches out, shows he can grow and change, and explores new musical avenues.”

To find out more about Jim Hudak and to order his new release, please visit his website: www.jimhudak.com.  If you would like to send him an email, his address is: jimmydak@pacbell.net.

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