Meet Horace Bray
Horace Bray was born on December 24th, 1991 and began playing guitar at age 14 when living in St. Louis, Missouri. Bray cites Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck as his earliest guitar influences before discovering jazz through his studies. I was really into Grant Green and Wes Montgomery early on, then got deeply into Kurt Rosenwinkel in high school, he recalls.
Bray was involved in an after-school jazz program run by Jazz St. Louis and was a part of their top group taught by guitarist Rick Hayden. I chose to leave Missouri for college because I needed a change in my life and a kick in the ass to push me to get better, Bray says.
In 2010, he enrolled at the University of North Texas, where he played with the One O'clock Lab Band as the first undergrad guitarist in 15 years to hold the guitar chair in that prestigious group, before graduating in 2015. My time at UNT was good and I met a lot of great musicians and people there, says Bray. Being around people like professors Ed Soph and Stefan Karlsson was really inspiring.
Bray has self-produced and released Dreamstate. His auspicious debut as a leader features ten original compositions performed by a crew of former fellow students at UNT. I really wanted to have this album be an example of what I could do if left to my own devices. I wanted it to be a little bit more delicate, but it was also important to me that there was a dance-iness to the music.