John “JZ” Zaskoda has been one of Fort Worth’s more renowned guitar players for more than 20 years and has been an ever-present fixture in the city’s guitar scene for decades. He’s best known for applying his signature pick-free playing while fronting local blues-rock outfit Dirty Pool since 2005… but long before his current band, his roots were buried deep in the traditions of the cowtown blues scene.

At just 17 years old he began to show up to local jams and regularly sit in with Panther City’s heavyweights Robert Ealey and UP Wilson. Soon after getting his feet wet on-stage, in 1995 he left to stay with blues guitar legend Larry Mcray in Memphis, TN. There he received a first hand education about the music business most young aspiring musicians could only dream of… only to return home as the guitar player for the Dallas based blues band “Shame Shame”, fronted by Dempsey Russell.

From those early days and thousands of gigs later, in 2022 he finally released his band’s first full length record “Late Bloomer” which features a swampy mix of Texas blues and cajun influence. (facebook.com/dirtypoolmusic)