John Penny was born in Alton Illinois where the great trumpet playerMiles Davis was born. John also carries the sign of Gemini in commonwith Davis. The signature of the attending physician on his birthcertificate from the same town happened to be one M. Davis. These connections and coincidences go further, but there's not room for them here.
John grew up the son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister in ahome where there was no shortage of music. Though his first desirewas to play violin, his parents had Louis Armstrong and Miles Davisin mind when they bought him a cornet at age 9. In a musically richfamily of eight where there was already a classical pianist, singers,and a guitarist, John came to know an eclectic mix of, Jazz,Classical, Gospel, Blues, Rock, and R&B from the start.
At age 15, John added bass guitar playing to the tuba, which hadreplaced the coronet, and soon after that he began playing the sixstring guitar. Bridging influences from first impressions to currentones, he began to write music at age 18. His influences now spancontinents and beyond in a lifelong passion to uncover and cultivatenew channels of musical expression. After graduating from the Universityof Iowa School of music, the guitar became his sole instrument.
John Penny has also composed music for motion pictures. Fueled by hiseclectic music background, he has composed TV commercial music scoresfor such advertisers as Best Buy, Frito-lay, Target, and NBC News.Long film projects included music for the film Patti Rocks,industrial scores for United Way, The Minnesota Twins, and Honeywell.
As a performer, he has taken the stage with Jazz greatssuch as Jazz organ legend, the late Captain Jack McDuff, HarmonicistsHoward Levy and Mike Turk, and drummers Eric Kamau Gravatt andBernard Purdie. He has also revisited the orchestral stage as aguitarist with music written and conducted by modern impressionistcomposer Barbara Kolb.
After making contributions as producer and performer to the CD projects of various talented local musicians, John Penny is working on a CD that seeks to capture some key statements of his life as a composer, framed in the present.