"An exceptional new talent on the instrumental guitar front". 20th Century Guitar Magazine

As a bandleader and sideman Jentsch has performed throughout the Northeast and Florida. He appears as a guitarist on the CD John Cage, Volume 11 (Mode Records 41). Based in Brooklyn, New York since 1999, his main ensemble is Jentsch Group in its trio, quartet, chamber, or large configuration. Performances in New York City have included the Cornelia Street Café, Internet Café, Brooklyn Brewery, World Turning Festival (Medicine Show Theatre), Chelsea Piers, Symphony Space, the Rock Theatre, Barbès, the Knitting Factory, and the Kitchen.

His first CD Media Event was released in 1998 and features his working trio from that era. The second, Miami Suite (1999) presents original works for large jazz ensemble. Brooklyn Suite was released on Fleur de Son Records in 2007, a feature for the composer’s various electric guitar sounds and textures combined with the forces of the large ensemble. A new Jentsch Group Quartet record (Fractured Pop) will also follow next year.

Jentsch holds various liberal arts and jazz guitar degrees from Gettysburg College, the New England Conservatory, and the Eastman School of Music, including the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Composition from the University of Miami. He is published by the University of Northern Colorado Press, Advance Music, and eREALBOOK.com.

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"Jentsch is more than just a seasoned musician; he's a composer who can convey his ideas on a grand scale."
- Mark F. Turner, AllAboutJazz

"Jentsch created a contrasted and kaleidoscopic patchwork with marvelous melodies, splendid voicings and a skillful use of dynamics. The leader...can produce vertiginous lines or eerie atmospherics, and his motifs often help anchor the proceedings."
- Alain Drouot, DownBeat Magazine

"Chris Jentsch's Brooklyn Suite (is) a complex-yet-highly rewarding suite for 18-piece ensemble. Jentsch's ambitiousness pays off with a work that, while at times bordering on the modal and even atonal, ends up overall as an accessible album that will also appeal to crossover audiences due to the guitarist's fondness for the rock music aesthetic."
- Graham L. Flanagan, AllAboutJazz

"Here’s proof that music jazz critics term “important” can also be awfully enjoyable."
- Paul Blair, Hot House Magazine

"Chris Jentsch's seven-part homage to his home borough is at once grandly orchestral and strikingly personal. The entire band seems to radiate from Jentsch's pensive guitar pulse, blending jazz, classical and rock ideas into a multidimensional reflection of everyday life."
- Forrest Dylan Bryant, Jazz Times

“Brooklyn Suite (is) Chris Jentsch's sublime set of interwoven themes and expansive movements for guitar and orchestra…”
- Howard Mandel

“Jentsch displays contemporary guitar mastery throughout (his CD Media Event). When you think of the traditions of the guitar in late 20th century, ‘emotion’ is the word that is often conjured. For Jentsch, add intellect, substance, and style to that guitar-emotion definition
– a delicacy and charm that spans the history of the music.”
- AllAboutJazz.com

“…a very promising guitarist. On ‘Exploring the Planet’ Jentsch fires up his electric for a snaky, delay decorated solo. All kinds of cool noises come out of Jentsch’s guitar.”
- CADENCE Magazine

“Skilled NYC electric guitarist recalls Bill Frisell's more aggressive side, both in his use of effects (distortion, delay, volume pedal) and in his jarringly inserted open-string notes. His work in acoustic settings ranges from straight-ahead and boppish to intense and driving, without ever getting totally ‘out.’”
- Listen.com