Marty Ashby

Marty Ashby is a jazz guitarist, GRAMMY^® Award-winning producer, programming consultant, motivational speaker and lifelong advocate of jazz music and its unique place in American culture. He is Executive Producer of MCG Jazz, which he started in 1987 and since then he has produced more than 2,000 concerts and over 55 recordings on the MCG Jazz label garnering five GRAMMY^® Awards and 11 additional GRAMMY^® nominations. For more than three decades, Ashby has been an artistic advisor and producer for jazz concerts and festivals around the country. He was the EPP Goldman-Sachs Fellow at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian. Ashby produced the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra’s “Jazz Beyond Borders” 2019 International tour. Ashby has presented his “Jazz is Life^®” professional development workshop to corporate and community audiences nationally and internationally. In 2018, Ashby produced the documentary film, We Knew What We Had: The Greatest Jazz Story Never Told which explores the social conditions and historical events that conspired to make Pittsburgh one of the leading contributors to the legacy of jazz music in the world. The film won two Telly Awards in the categories of Music and Arts and Culture.  As a guitarist, Ashby has performed and recorded with Slide Hampton, Claudio Roditi, Nancy Wilson, Paquito D’Rivera, Herbie Mann, Phil Woods, The Dizzy Gillespie^™ All-Star Big Band and others.  Ashby’s latest venture is as a Certified Vibrational Sound Therapist, advanced Reiki Master and Biofield Tuning Practitioner. He is deeply committed to sharing the healing power of sound and music.