About Travis Daudert
Born and raised in Colorado, Travis began playing music at the age of six after being offered accordion lessons from a door to door accordion lessons salesman! These early experiences led to a passion for making music and after a valuable turn with the drums, he was inspired to play the guitar - leading to an eventual interest in music performance, theory, recording, composition, and education.
Travis spent his youth and early adulthood playing professionally and touring with various jam and rock bands throughout the West Coast. In his late twenties, he decided that it was time to further his education and enrolled at Grossmont Community College in Southern California. After spending a semester with an undeclared major, he pursued his interest and love of music with an Associates Degree in classical guitar, where he was fortunate to study with Fred Benedetti and Robert Wetzel. Upon graduation from Grossmont in 2004, Travis was awarded the Division Honoree for Communications & Fine Arts.
Travis graduated Summa Cum Laude with his B.M. in Jazz Studies from San Diego State University in 2008 and was voted Outstanding Student by faculty members of the music department. He received his Masters Degree in Jazz Studies, also from SDSU, in 2010. He is grateful to have studied with Richard Thompson, Rick Helzer, Bob Magnusson, Bob Boss, Derek Cannon and Brent Dutton while attending SDSU.
Travis currently leads his own band, Grey Rails, and performs as often as possible.
Equally interested in teaching, composition, recording and performance, Travis has written for string quartet and many solo classical instruments in addition to composing jazz, pop and rock tunes. He has a truly wide range of influences ranging from Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Philip Glass to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Medeski, Martin & Wood and Wayne Shorter to the Beatles, Paul Simon, the Grateful Dead, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Parliament/Funkadelic and Frank Zappa.
