Today’s guest is guitarist Dariel Peniazek. Since graduating from Temple University last year, where he studied with Warren Wolf, Bruce Barth, Tim Warfield, Dick Oatts, and Peter Bernstein, he has quickly become one of the most in demand guitarists in Philadelphia. His responsive comping and deep knowledge of afro-cuban, central, and south american styles has developed over the past few years and has added to his arsenal. This year he was chosen for the prestigious 2019 Kimmel Center Jazz Residency. Where he collaborated with his sister “poet, playwright, and lyricist Maya Peniazek, to create a piece that explores, his experiences of discovering his cultural identity as a Latino-American.The world premiere of this work can be heard at the Kimmel Center on June 8th 2019. This something you definitely don’t want to miss. Tickets and more info can be found at Kimmelcenter.org

Our conversation was recorded on a south Philly rooftop, on a beautiful spring day, with coffee in hand, and all the sights and sounds you might expect. I’ve played a lot with Dariel over the years and I’ve always enjoyed his insights into a life of music. We bounce around a bit in this conversation covering an array of topics from coffee to travel to weird gigs we’ve played to building guitars, but we always come back to the ultimate goal;  building community through music.