Ken Navarro : Let It Play
Ken Navarro has a long career of making music that captures the moment. His music has a way of taking the listener somewhere else entirely and dropping them off in a better place. Even when the moment is already good, Navarro’s guitar can elevate it. The music does not have to dominate the room to change its atmosphere. It simply becomes part of it.
For longtime listeners, that quality is familiar. Navarro’s music has the ability to become attached to real life to drives, workdays, quiet afternoons, celebrations and those otherwise ordinary stretches of time that eventually become memories. Somewhere along the way, the music stops feeling like something playing in the background and becomes part of the moment itself. That is the Ken Navarro experience. And perhaps the best way to understand it is remarkably simple: let it play.
There are artists whose albums invite listeners to search for a favorite song. Navarro’s music suggests another approach. Start the album and leave it alone. One composition moves into another without requiring a change of mood or an interruption of whatever is happening around it. There is a consistency to the experience without a sameness to the music. Return to an album and something that previously passed almost unnoticed can suddenly emerge a guitar phrase, a rhythmic turn, a note held just long enough to change the feeling of a passage. Listen casually and the music moves with the moment. Listen closely and another experience begins.
That is when the guitar becomes particularly interesting. Try listening to an individual strum rather than the entire composition. Follow one phrase. Listen to the way Navarro enters a note, allows it to exist and then moves away from it. There are moments when the guitar seems almost to sing. A note becomes a phrase. But Navarro rarely allows that individual moment to separate itself from the larger composition merely to announce the technique behind it. The guitar settles back into the fabric of the song. Considerable musicianship is there for anyone who wants to examine it. Everyone else can simply enjoy the music.
That apparent ease is backed by decades of work. According to Navarro’s official biography, he began his recording career in Los Angeles as a session guitarist, performer and composer, performing and recording with artists including Doc Severinsen, Nell Carter, John Patitucci, Eric Gale, Vicki Carr, Dave Koz and Alex Acuña. He released his debut album, The River Flows, in 1990.
What followed became an extensive recording career. His official biography lists After Dark in 1991, The Labor of Love in 1992, I Can’t Complain in 1993 and Pride and Joy in 1994. Navarro’s site states that the latter three reached the Top 5 at national radio. Brighter Days, released in 1995, also reached the national radio Top 5. The releases continued with Smooth Sensation, Ablaze in Orlando, In My Wildest Dreams, Island Life, Slow Dance, All The Way, Love Coloured Soul, The Meeting Place and The Grace of Summer Light. Navarro’s official biography states that The Grace of Summer Light was named the No. 1 Contemporary Jazz CD of 2008 by JazzTimes.
The catalog demonstrates something important about Navarro’s music. The recognizable quality of his playing has not required him to make the same record repeatedly. There has been room to explore. His official site states that 2010’s Dreaming of Trains received two pre-nominations for the 2011 Grammy Awards. Two years later, The Test of Time took a markedly different approach: 12 solo-guitar performances in which Navarro simultaneously performed the melodies, bass lines, harmonies and percussion on a single guitar, without overdubbing. That fact makes listening closely to the individual elements of Navarro’s playing even more revealing. There can be a great deal happening inside music that never feels crowded.
Navarro eventually expanded that musical vocabulary beyond the guitar-centered ensemble. His 2018 project Music For Guitar and Orchestra was his first recording with a symphony orchestra. According to his official biography, Navarro scored and arranged eight compositions for guitar and orchestra, including new versions of “Smooth Sensation,” “The Stars, The Snow, The Fire” and “Juliet.” Then came Into The Light in 2020. Navarro identifies it as his 25th album, and his official biography states that it reached No. 1 on the national contemporary/smooth-jazz radio charts.
But perhaps more revealing than a chart position is what Navarro has said about the purpose behind the music. Writing about Into The Light on his official website, Navarro described creating music as creating new musical journeys for himself and his listeners. He also expressed the hope that listeners might find spiritual inspiration, delight and joy through that music. Those words help explain something that can otherwise be difficult to articulate about his work. The destination is not necessarily the point. The journey is.
Navarro’s catalog has continued to grow. I Will Still Be Here arrived in 2021 with contributions from more than 20 musicians, including John Patitucci, Dave Weckl, Eric Marienthal, Gary Grainger, Bruce Guttridge and Jay Rowe. Love Is Everywhere followed in 2023 as Navarro’s 27th album, and his official site states that its single “Silent Storm” spent 10 weeks in the Top 20. On March 7, 2025, Navarro released It’s Nice To Be With You, his 28th album. The project contains 12 new compositions and features both his acoustic and electric guitar work.
The music has continued beyond it. Navarro released “Andiamo” in June 2026. Earlier that year, his official site reported that 10 new songs were already in progress, with additional writing planned as he worked toward what will become his 29th album. More than three decades after The River Flows, the journey is still moving.
Longevity can be measured in years, releases and chart history. But there is another measurement that matters with music: Does the listener come back? And when they do, is there anything left to discover? That may be where Navarro’s catalog makes its strongest case. Return to a familiar recording and concentrate on something different. Ignore the melody and follow the rhythm. Then listen again and follow the guitar. On another pass, forget about analyzing any of it and allow the entire composition to exist as one piece. The experience changes depending upon how closely the listener chooses to engage with it. That is not the same as music demanding attention. It is music rewarding attention. There is a difference.
Navarro’s guitar can move to the front of a composition and speak clearly, then seemingly disappear back inside the arrangement. The technical ability never has to become the entire point of the song. It serves the atmosphere, melody and movement around it. Perhaps that is why the music can accompany life so easily. It leaves room for one.
Put Ken Navarro on during a drive. Let the music occupy a quiet room. Let it accompany work, conversation or an afternoon when absolutely nothing important is supposed to happen. Then, sometime later, listen differently. Follow one guitar phrase. Listen to an individual strum. Notice the space between the notes. Hear how one note seems to sing before another answers it. Then stop concentrating. Allow all of those individual pieces to disappear into the composition again.
That is where Navarro’s music seems most comfortable not forcing itself into a moment, but becoming part of its texture. Some music tells the listener when to pay attention. Some music demands to be changed when the mood changes. And then there is the music that can simply remain. No searching for the next track. No reaching for something else. No need to interrupt the moment.
Just let it play.
For more from Ken Navarro, including his latest music, releases and updates, visit KenNavarro.com and follow him on Instagram at @navarro_ken
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