Award-winning jazz guitarist and composer

Award-winning jazz guitarist, and composer, Bill Bonifas has a long career of performing jazz and jazz fusion music with Grammy Award winning artists, accompanying bands for festivals worldwide, and serving as a board member to the Milwaukee music community. His current music ensemble is the Bonifas Electric Band.

As a jazz-fusion aficionado, Bill was the lead guitarist and composer of the 80’s and 90’s jazz/rock fusion, Random Walk (RW). He toured with Grammy Award winning, Native American flute-virtuoso, Douglas Spotted Eagle, to locales such as the Catalina Jazz festival in California, Summerfest in Milwaukee, Jazz Yatra festival in Mumbai, India, and at the opening celebrations of the 2002 Olympics held in Salt Lake City. Bill was awarded the Manty Ellis Award for his support of jazz, and composer and educator Fred Sturm selected Bill to receive the first ever Jazz Alumni Award from Lawrence University. 

His current ensemble, The Bonifas Band, includes Grammy Award winning trumpeter Brian Lynch, Theo Merriweather on keyboards, Eric Hervey on bass and Reggie Bordeaux on drums. When Brian is touring elsewhere, Milwaukee’s Eric Jacobson brings his own special trumpet sound to the original music composed by Bill.