Going His Own Way

Preview: Todd Nelson’s JazzAmericana, Thursday, June 12, 2025

Guitarist Todd Nelson ignores music’s genre “border patrol.” His first teachers were a folksinger and a classical virtuoso, and his high school band ambitiously tackled the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s intense jazz fusion “Dance of Maya.”

Todd Nelson

“Instrumental jazz and improvised music, that’s what I’ve been doing since 2011,” says the son of musical parents. His father sang gospel and played piano, also trombone in a brass quintet whose trumpeter played in the Philadelphia Orchestra. His mother played piano and mandolin.

When a buddy started guitar lessons, so did Nelson. When the friend quit, Nelson kept going; studying and performing while still in elementary school in Rhode Island. “We called ourselves the Incidentals,” he says, recalling his first band. That sounded too much like a barbershop quartet, so they became Sophist Intrigue when their drummer’s sister returned in 1967 from San Francisco with suggestions. “She came up with a name for us and painted my guitar case all psychedelic,” says Nelson. “We had no idea what [Sophist Intrigue] meant, and I still don’t know.” Now, it’s a song title on his “jazzamericana” album, released in March.

JazzAmericana (with added capitals) also names the new (since February) band he leads Thursday. Nelson plays guitar with bassist Kyle Esposito and drummer Justin Tracy. Esposito played with Nelson and drummer Manuel Quintana in NEQ and with Tracy and singer Mark Delgado in Spanish Ghost. London-born Tracy led his own band at European jazz festivals while Esposito also plays with Hudson Valley saxophonist Jay Collins.

Inspired by rockers Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Peter Green initially, Nelson discovered jazz, first as a fan of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Then, as a player, he admired John Scofield – “so original in his sound,” says Nelson; and Kenny Burrell, for “…the simplicity of his playing…no wasted notes, so melodic.”

After high school in Delmar, Nelson cross-enrolled at SUNY Albany (now UAlbany) and (now closed) College of St. Rose to continue guitar training. And he found in Albany’s Lark Street/J.B. Scott’s 1980s scene a do-it-yourself ethos that encouraged creativity, playing with “some really good musicians and singers who could play all kinds of stuff,” he recalls. 

Those “really good musicians and singers” became the Units (later Fear of Strangers). One of Albany’s best and best-known late 70s-early 80s rock bands, they started by playing covers but soon turned to creating original songs. “We were fortunate to start writing at a time when there was a kind of anything-goes ethos about songs…A lot of the stuff we wrote was pretty out there,” notes Nelson. He found, “It was OK to write songs about buildings and food,” he says, citing a Talking Heads album. “It freed us up.”

In JazzAmericana, Nelson takes full advantage of his freedom. He plays mostly originals today, including “Paper Machete,” “Sophist Intrigue,” “The Dogleg of Panhandle,” “Block Party” and “Nevertheless” – tunes from two NEQ albums (“None of the Above,” 2014; and “Nevertheless,” 2021) and two under his own name (“Here,” 2011, and “jazzamericana,” 2025).

“Some of the (original) songs are highly composed and they all have some improvising space in there,” says Nelson, where “we just let our freak flag fly.”

They also play covers including “Black Orpheus,” “Love for Sale,” the Kenny Burrell favorite “Midnight Blue,” the Miles Davis classic “Blue in Green,” “The Backwoods Song” and the Jim Hall version of Rodrigo’s classical “Concerto de Aranjuez.” Nelson says, “Playing covers, it’s best to start simple….I just try to learn the melody and see how I can get some chords in there and map out where I’m going.”

Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.

Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative. This blog is a series media sponsor.