or the next several years, Jerry remained busy as a session guitarist, teacher and composer. He wrote songs for America West Airlines, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and The Make a Wish Foundation. In 1986, he recorded all guitar parts for the album Form Letter, by Berkley/Bay area-based Missionary Kid, and released his first solo recording, Brighter Light.

Jerry relocated to Flagstaff, AZ in 1988 and was offered a faculty position teaching guitar and music history at Northern Arizona University (NAU). He eventually entered a graduate program in musicology at NAU and received a Masters degree in 1994. While living in Flagstaff, Jerry began performing traditional blues with local blues men, Ray Rossi and Hans Olson. Acquiring several National metal-body guitars propelled his musical direction further into the realm of finger style and slide guitar. His resulting mix of academia overlapped with the blues has been described as “Segovia playing the music of Robert Johnson, while thinking about Leo Kottke.” more >>

At right, with the Aaron Thompson Band at the Summer Jam, Prescott, AZ, 1989.
In the early 1990s, Jerry was on the teaching faculty at Northern Arizona University.