Given his background (studied jazz at prestigious North Texas State University from 1981 to 1985, hired shortly after graduating to teach ear training at the Berklee College of Music, where he has been the assistant chair of the guitar department since 1992), you'd think that Rick Peckham's debut as a leader would be a quintessentially swinging, straight ahead date paying homage to the likes of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and Kenny Burrell. While Peckham has surely absorbed his share of Wes and the rest of those jazz guitar immortals, he reveals on LEFT END an equal allegiance to rock guitar greats of the '70s like Jeff Beck, Neil Young, Mick Taylor, Billy Gibbons, Ritchie Blackmore, Paul Kossoff and Joe Walsh… potent, creative and highly individual players all. Somehow Peckham has managed to deftly combine elements from both camps on LEFT END, seamlessly marrying rock tones and twisted intent with sophisticated jazz harmonies and freewheeling improvisational daring, in the vein of noted guitarists and innovators who have come before him like John Scofield, John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell. The rock references here essentially date Peckham (he's 46). But the spirit of search and discovery that permeates this renegade guitar trio project marks him as eternally youthful. Backed by the remarkably sympathetic rhythm tandem of drummer Jim Black (a kindred spirit and ubiquitous figure on New York's downtown improvisors scene) and bassist Tony Scherr (a fixture in Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob, Michael Blake's Free Association and Bill Frisell's trio as well as a fellow North Texas State alumnus), Peckham distinguishes himself as a gutsy, accomplished player whose mind is wide open to sonic possibilities.