Hi, my name is Denny Ilett and I’m a guitar player. I’ve been a professional for twenty seven years now. In those twenty seven years I’ve managed to be lucky enough to work in a lot of different styles and I think it’s very important for any guitar player to not confine themselves to one style of music. I like to play blues; I like to play jazz; I like to play rock; I like to play funk; I like to play anything I can put my hand to and head to. I like to have a go at.

I’ve done a lot of touring all over the world, I’ve toured all over Europe; Australia; the States; the Middle East. Playing my guitar in different bands; I’m what they call a freelance player. I’ll take what comes over the phone, although I do have set people as well that I work with. For fifteen years now I’ve worked with a wonderful singer from New Orleans called Lillian Boutté. She’s the official musical ambassador for New Orleans; a title only previously held by Louis Armstrong so it just goes to show you how amazing she is. I always work with the great Pee Wee Ellis who was James Brown’s musical director for a few years and was also Van Morrison. I learned an awful lot from him about how to keep it simple and keep it funky. Some of the other things I do; I like to play a sort of gypsy swing style; a bit like Django Reinhardt in a band I have called Mosco Drug Club. We did a lot of touring in the UK and some on the continent too and also with my good friend James Morton’s band Pork Chop which features Ian Mathews; the great drummer from Casabean.

One of my favorite things to do is play with other guitar players. I find it particularly inspiring, particularly if they are better than I am or I think they are better than me, so I’ve been very lucky to play with great Jazz players like Jim Mullen or John Etheridge; Martin Taylor and recently from New York, Howard Alden. I got to play with him, it was a wonderful experience.

I come from something of a musical family, my father is trumpet player. I started off on the trumpet when I was about 8 years old and when I got to 16 I heard a strange noise coming from my brother’s bedroom and it was the first notes of Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix and suddenly this completely blew me away and I had to get a guitar and that’s what I did. I put the trumpet in the case and it hasn’t come out since.

I hope that when you look at my lessons I’m able to give you something you can take and run with yourself to create your own ideas just like I did by watching players when I was younger, listening to players when I was younger. The most important thing is listening. If you have the ideas in your head you can play them. If you don’t have the ideas in your head you can’t play them, it’s as simple as that.