jonathan paull gertler

Four important emotions that connect listeners the deepest with the music they cherish are love, passion, resilience, and empathy. These are also the core tenets for how singer/ songwriter/guitarist Jonathan Paull Gertler is able to bond with listeners over the course of the nine tracks that populate his riveting new album, Unfinished Business, which is set for release on all major digital platforms on October 30, 2026, via Rock Ridge Music. 

Produced and mixed by Grammy-winner Paul Ebersold (Morgan Wade, Steve Cropper) and recorded at the Rukkus Room in Nashville, Unfinished Business once again places the spotlight on Gertler’s expressive voice and finger-style acoustic guitar accompaniment. He’s also aided and abetted by the likes of Dan Knobler and Nathan Dugger on electric guitar, Matt Menefee on banjo and Dobro, Jimbo Hart on electric bass, Rich Brinsfield on upright bass, Kai Welch on piano, and Josh Hunt on drums. “The whole studio experience of recording in Nashville versus Boston was amazing for me,” Gertler reveals. “There I was, working with all these great musicians — and then I also had a producer who is just encyclopedic about every musical genre, someone who was both adamant in his own and respectful of my sensibilities. It was an honor to work with them all.”

From the jaunty determination of the title track to the slide-riff-powered release of “Quarantined” to the footloose travelogue of “Gypsy,” Unfinished Business is deeply rooted in the welcoming and personable relatability Gertler’s music has reflected throughout his decade-plus-long recording career. His inherent ability to bring everyone along for the shared ride has been forever ingrained in his creative DNA, due in no small part to the many years he worked as a surgeon and subsequently as an entrepreneur in the life sciences. He’s spent decades at the edge of risk or in the middle of it.

“I feel fortunate that my life has allowed me to interact deeply with people from so many places,” Gertler explains. “One of the things I really cherish is that, on a one-on-one level, I’m usually able to connect with people easily. People often will readily open up to me, and I’m truly happy to open up in return. It’s wonderful to meet someone and learn about the things that drive them emotionally and also just hear their stories, I’m relationship-focused in everything I do, so if the way I write and play my songs gives people the sense of comfort that we’re on a trusted two-way street, that’s the nicest thing musically I could hope for.”

A perfect example of that artist/listener connection is the linchpin track, “Restless Heart,” an unabashed treatise about disclosing mutual feelings. “That was the first tune I wrote for this group of songs,” Gertler relates. “It’s intentionally a pretty simple song musically — there’s very little in the way of chord changes. Thematically, it’s in keeping with what I was feeling — the lyrics speak for themselves — but that emotional surge you’re hearing on the album came out unexpectedly when we were working on it in the studio. With every one of these tunes, we’d do six takes, and my voice would pretty much be shot by the end of each session, so I had to record a number of the vocals after a little rest. It was really a thrill to hear the finished version, because I had forgotten how I felt about this song.”

Another thrill came with Unfinished Business’s fresh take on “Gypsy,” a complete overhaul of a song Gertler had initially released some years ago but had long been unsatisfied with how it originally turned out. “‘Gypsy’ is an interesting one,” Gertler muses. “When I was getting to know Paul Ebersold, he was listening to some of my old stuff from some early attempts at productions. He pointed out ‘Gypsy’ and said, ‘Great tune, but done terribly.’ I told him, ‘Yes, and I’ve always wanted to redo it.’ So we did. We simplified it. I changed some lyrics, redid the tempo, and the new production is very true to its acoustic fingerstyle roots including the addition of Dobro and banjo. And now, I really love how it sounds. It’s the way it was always intended.” 

A fine appreciator of the art of songwriting and composition, Gertler has drawn inspiration from top-tier artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Lyle Lovett, Billy Joel, Chris Smither, and Jason Isbell. “The more I listen to those artists, the more I realize that, in their own respective ways, they’re brilliant in how they can take certain very standard chord structures and progressions, vary the meter and sometimes the order, and then match them to surprising and emotionally resonant lyrics,” he explains. “It is something to which I always aspire. Sometimes I get lucky, and a new song will come together quickly. Other times, I have to know when to walk away when I realize I’m making things too complex or not impactful. I’ll step back and let the chords flow in a different way, or maybe I’ll have the chorus come ahead of the verse or repeat lyrics until what I am trying to say becomes clearer to me. I’ve learned that I have less of a need to ‘dazzle.’ Not that I ever dazzled,” Gertler clarifies with a laugh, “but I try to pull things back to where I can make them interesting without trying to be too clever.”

It’s a struggle to self-edit one’s work, but Gertler feels he’s winning the battle. “I have really tried to discipline myself as a writer,” he concedes, “and I think the tunes on Unfinished Business are among the best I’ve ever written. I used to bend over backwards to come up with surprising chords, odd voicings, and different tunings, and then I’d try to find either a lyrical or musical phrase to act as the center. It’s easy to get lyrically lazy, and I never want to do that. I never want to be trite. Lyrics have to be unexpected even if the underlying music has a comfort and familiarity. I have to keep remembering how to be understated musically while still being inventive lyrically — and I hope I can keep going down that path.” 

Another fine example of how Gertler knew he was following the right path is how he found a way to power through “Overwhelmed,” which admittedly took him a while to get to the finish line. “I had the music completely written — something I almost never do first — and I was struggling to find the lyrics,” he details. “But then something happened when I was watching the movie Maestro, which is about Leonard Bernstein. There’s a scene in Central Park, on a field I know well from growing up there, where his wife’s just been diagnosed with an advanced lung cancer, and he says to her, ‘Throw your weight against me, darling.’ I changed it to, ‘Press your weight against mine.’ After I had that line, the rest of the lyrics came out in a torrent. I am always grateful when that happens.” 

Once Gertler feels like he has the right idea to build from, he completes the songwriting process through a mixture of repetition, persistence, and experimentation. “I have hundreds of voice memos on my phone with snippets of ideas, and when any snippet is good enough to continue with, I’ll mark them as, ‘You should finish this as number one, and then finish that one as number two,’” he acknowledges. “I might be writing a verse and get to the third or fourth line before I know that this one’s almost there. I’ve got the right intent, but I know something’s off — so the ability to play through it as much as possible and make it iterative is critical to the process.”

If Unfinished Business has taught Gertler anything, it’s how much he absolutely loves making music. “I had an utter sense of joy making this music with these remarkable musicians,” he concludes. “It built confidence and appreciation — and it inspired me to many things I want to do, musically and in other ways. If the songs on Unfinished Business can conjure a sense of balance and understanding, and also give people hope that there’s some kind of magic that comes with each new year, then these songs are transmitting what I want them to transmit. They share a sense of my ongoing appetite to create with more calm, forgiveness, and tolerance than I had when I was younger — but with equal or likely even more passion.”

In effect, the wisdom Gertler gathered and imparted over the years, working always in worlds that exposed him to profound aspects of the human condition and its attendant emotions, collectively led to the depth of lyrical content and supportive sonic accompaniment that comprise Unfinished Business. Repeat listens to this deeply heartfelt album reinforce the fact that sharing good music and connecting with listeners on a gut level is Jonathan Paull Gertler’s core business — and Business is good.

About the artist:

While growing up in New York City, the fire of creativity stirred inside Jonathan Paull Gertler early on. He began learning guitar at the age of 11 from a music teacher who taught him traditional folk and blues songs, which heavily influenced his songwriting. He began writing in earnest when he was in his mid-teens, exploring his love of melodies, stories, grit, and songs with emotional depth. 

While music was always important to this Boston-based Americana-folk rock singer-songwriter, he waited until he had some life lessons and experience under his belt before he released his music into the world. 2016’s Heart and Mind and 2021’s No Fear were fueled by a culture of positivity, filled with the persistent optimism he has always had and tempered by the appreciation of challenge and risk that years  can bring. Gertler feels that every aspect of his life - from being an inner city trauma and vascular surgeon, to his work in the life sciences, fatherhood, political engagement, and an adamant love for the outdoors clearly fueled his outlook as a songwriter, bringing him up close to aspects of life and death but love and rebirth that most others never get to see. 

"Enjoy the peace that Jonathan Paull Gertler bestows through his songwriting." - Americana Highways

"...his message of perseverance is a needed antidote for our times." - Off-Center Views

"...stellar and nuanced…" - Skope Magazine

"Jonathan Paull Gertler’s music is a gentle nod to the folk singer-songwriters of yesteryear while incorporating roots rock, some jazz phrasings, and splashes of Americana. His lyrics have a depth and breadth that only time, experience, and maturity can bring to the table, and his songs are a breathtaking sonic stroll through life lessons woven among easy-on-the-ears folk-roots instrumentation. He makes music meant for repeat listenings, for quiet Sunday mornings, for late-night drives, for the soundtrack of our lives." - Vents Magazine

"Capturing a pure acoustic sound… an organic feeling." - Elmore Magazine

"...sunny acoustic rock…" - Adobe & Teardrops