> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Jazz meets shred guitar - URL: https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/keanu-ienco-celestial-desire-jazz-shred-guitar/ - Published: 2022-03-22T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2024-04-04T00:46:47.000Z - Description: An interview with Keanu Ienco, a 24-year-old guitarist in Nanaimo - Author: Will Chernoff - Tags: Free Weekly ## Get the free weekly email The week's upcoming jazz shows from the gig list + articles like this one. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. You get it on Tuesdays, 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Unsubscribe any time. **Keanu Ienco** is a guitar hero: a jazz education turned up to 11, Wes Montgomery meets Joe Satriani. He released his first album, *Celestial Desire*, from Nanaimo on March 18, 2022. Keanu will perform with James Van Weerden on bass and Adam Robertson on drums to support the album release [on April 2, 2022 at Vinyl Envy,](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/vinyl-envy-presents-keanu-ienco-rowan-farintosh-quartet-tickets-276185497257?ref=rhythmchanges.ca) which is a venue in Victoria. At the gig, Rowan Farintosh will lead a saxophone-guitar jazz quartet to complete the double bill. According to an [interview with Our Native Land](https://youtu.be/-IECeH8zWW4?ref=rhythmchanges.ca), Keanu identifies as Havasupai: an indigenous group of the Grand Canyon area in Arizona. ## Keanu Ienco does more than shred: he plays jazz While studying at Vancouver Island University (VIU) in the late 2010s, Keanu played gigs in mid-island ensembles like Andrew Homzy's NOLA Nighthawks. He was keen to tell me about his jazz background and how it's still relevant to him today, despite releasing a mostly instrumental rock guitar album: > "Jazz is the most common kind of gigs I get hired for. Even on my album, they all start out as jazz tunes, like I'll have a 'head' and then keep adding more arrangement stuff to it. And all my voicings are jazz voicings, but with distortion. > > "I may consider doing a stripped-down, one-take trio type of record at some point." ### Education In our interview, Keanu highlighted two important teachers, the first of whom contributed to *Celestial Desire*: > "I have a co-producer, who goes under the pseudonym Folded Lines, but on the teaching side, he's Jim Blair. He's been a local musician, music producer, guitar teacher, actually my very first guitar teacher. > > "I took lessons with him for ten years. He's a mastermind in all that production stuff, so he's the co-producer. I was the more hands-on person with everything, but I'd send him stuff and he would send me stuff back with notes. > > "And we did learn a decent amount at VIU about audio production too." The other is Lee Ellefson: > "He was the guitar teacher at VIU, and I did all four years with him for private instruction. He's a really great guy and fantastic teacher; even people who didn't play guitar would do tutoring with him at the program. > > "He writes more modern contemporary jazz stuff, but he really inspired me on this record. I use what I refer to as 'Lee voicings' with a compound interval, and fill it with open strings, and that's what you find a lot on the record: those kind of open, ethereal type of voicings. > > "So he's a huge influence on this album, even though if you check out his stuff, it's not going to be distorted guitar or anything like that." For his part, Keanu teaches at a lessons studio in Nanaimo now. ### Album production Speaking of distorted guitars, Keanu chased the tone and recorded them himself: > "All the guitar parts were recorded here in my home. I demoed everything, I got my drummer friend to come over and demo. Everything else was recorded at Risque Disque Records, that's where we did the drums with Anthony Sharkey." I admire the confidence that Keanu, 24, brings to the table. ### *Celestial Desire* by Keanu Ienco Of all the album cuts, **“Riverside Cake”** balances jazz and rock most evenly. It's a Purdie shuffle groove going into 5/8 with intense, crunchy chords. **Elise Boulanger** sings on a few tracks: **"Indigo"** and the title track, plus wordless vocals on **"Wovoka's Dance"**. It's a nice addition to an otherwise pretty steady series of arrangements. And some of the instrumentals still leave enough space that they could be songs, in particular **“How Did We Get Here?”** – though it has some seriously impressive upward guitar sweeping. Keanu cites Pat Metheny as an influence, and I hear it on “**Celestial Desire**”, which brings a bit of Metheny's *Bright Size Life* energy. On the other hand, there's no jazz on the highlight single from *Celestial Desire,* **"I Still Shine"** – which just shreds. Going through the album, I thought about what I wrote in a review of [*Paper Dream* by Omianan](https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/omianan-paper-dream/) last month: > “'At Last it Rained' has that feeling after a powerful number at a rock gig, when your ears need a rest and you space out to an isolated, reverberating guitar; but it builds for a while, too." Keanu does that on several tracks, including the title track. ## The right fit for Keanu in Vancouver Presenters and fans in Vancouver: where will Keanu fit best? I move that he has enough jazz to hang: the question is whether or not *Celestial Desire* is heavy enough for the hard rock folks. I say yes, and he's confident enough to make it work. Let's think about a bill at the Rickshaw or something, and unite the jazz and rock communities like few performers here can do. Keanu's already scheduled to do it in Victoria; that's the power of his project. --- *Listen to Celestial Desire by Keanu Ienco* [*here*](https://keanuienco.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-desire?ref=rhythmchanges.ca)*.* *The artist maintains the link above. If the link broke, please* [*contact Rhythm Changes*](https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/contact)*, and thank you for the heads-up.*