Rob Luft



Rob Luft (born November 1993) is an English jazz guitarist and composer from London, United Kingdom. He has released three albums, Riser, Life Is The Dancer & Dahab Days, as a solo artist on British label Edition Records. His playing has also been documented on several albums released by the legendary German jazz label ECM Records, most notably on John Surman's critically acclaimed 2024 release Words Unspoken.

Biography
Luft was born in Sidcup, Greater London, and attended The Judd School from 2005 to 2012. While at this school, he joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Great Britain (2010–2015). He then enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music where, upon graduation, he was the recipient of the Kenny Wheeler Music Prize in association with Edition Records. In 2016, he was awarded the 2nd prize in the guitar competition at Montreux Jazz Festival, adjudicated by John McLaughlin. His debut album as a bandleader was released in 2017 and was warmly received with four star reviews in The Guardian, The Irish Times, Jazzwise and Downbeat Magazine, who described it as "the most fully-realised and rewarding debut album from a guitarist-composer since Julian Lage's 2009 outing". He released his second album on Edition Records, Life Is The Dancer, in April 2020, in the midst of the global COVID-19 lockdown. This eagerly anticipated sophomore album was also received to critical acclaim, with All About Jazz describing it as "balm for the soul" as well as stating that "every aspect of the album is sublime". He has also performed as a sideman with many of the world's leading modern jazz artists & groups, including Django Bates, John Surman, Manu Katché, Arve Henriksen, Avishai Cohen (trumpeter), Ben Wendel and The Cinematic Orchestra. Luft was the recipient of the Peter Whittingham Award in 2015 as part of the co-led big band Patchwork Jazz Orchestra, and in 2018 he was nominated as the "Breakthrough Act of the Year" in the Jazz FM Awards and as the "Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year" in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. He was selected as a BBC New Generation Jazz Artist 2019-2022 & in November 2023 he performed his self-penned concerto for electric guitar & symphony orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra as part of the London Jazz Festival.

Perhaps his most fruitful collaboration over the past decade has been with Swiss-Albanian singer Elina Duni, with whom he has released two albums on ECM Records, Lost Ships & A Time To Remember, the latter of which was awarded "Jazz Album Of The Month" in The Guardian newspaper upon release in June 2023. Duni & Luft often appear in a pared-back duo format of guitar & voice, and the pair have performed right across the globe, touring throughout Europe, the Americas & the Far East, having given sold-out shows in New York at Le Poisson Rouge (formerly The Village Gate), Montreux Jazz Festival & Cairo Jazz Festival, Egypt.

Discography
As leader/co-leader

As sideman