It's not that Gabe Condon dislikes guitar players, what with their phallic histrionics and volume. He's one himself. It's just that Condon sees beyond the wood and wire and gets to the music. Of course, this 18-year-old tips his hat to plenty of the six-string greats - Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Charlie Christian, etc. Yet when pressed for influences, he rattles off other jazz masters - horn players.

"I try to listen to people who did it real well," Condon says. "John Coltrane; he's one of my favorites... Stan Getz." In fact, Condon approaches his guitar like a sax. No, he doesn't blow into one end, but his phrasing is intuitive, fluid, and less strident than the instrument typically allows. He concerns himself with the bullets, not just the gun.

"I try not to sound guitaristic," he says. "It's good to take advantage of guitaristic things, but listening to different instruments makes you play less like your instrument." It's no doubt this attitude, approach, and talent that scored him an Outstanding Performance Award from Downbeat Magazine in 2008.

Condon has been on the scene for years with the rock/fusion trio Mint Jam. He pops up at various open jams, where he's got the balls to tackle Jimi Hendrix or Robin Trower, and the chops to back it up. Grown-up jazzers like Mike Melito and Rod Blumenau invite Condon up frequently as well. The young guitarist finds himself stepping high, and not just because he's young.

"They make me work hard because they're so good," he says. "I'm lucky that they like - or seem to like - to play with me."

Perhaps it's his non-guitar approach or his rock and blues roots. Though he gets out there with the heat and volume of both of those styles, Condon stresses that jazz is still the root.

"Yeah I think it kind of works both ways," says Condon, "especially with the blues. I'm used to hearing that kind of language of the jazz. The overall jazz language is more comfortable to me. I'm concentrating on jazz mostly right now. That's what I'm studying in school. Playing jazz allows me to play a lot of different kinds of music."

The studying and the wood-shedding has started to pay off. This week Condon and his guitar will hop a flight to Miami to participate (along with 142 other 17- and 18-year-olds) in YoungArts Week, the core program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Participants were picked from more than 4000 applicants in nine disciplines in the visual, literary, and performing arts. The chosen few will participate in master classes by world-renowned artists, performances, and exhibitions, and will be eligible to win prizes, trips to New York, or visit the White House. Condon was the only guitar player in the country chosen to participate in the jazz category.

Currently enrolled as a freshman at the Eastman School of Music, Condon is studying what he loves. But what happens when what you love becomes your homework? How does Condon cut loose?

"I think doing the homework helps me to kind of cut loose," he says, just in case his teachers read this interview. "If I do my homework I feel like I can play what I want to play."

Condon isn't afraid to address his weak points. "Some teachers tell me to leave more space," he says. "Which I think is something everyone could work on." But among his strong points is his fluid sense of melody; Condon doesn't rely exclusively on the riff or the chop.

"I try to play melodically," he says. "Whether I do is up to the listener."

Condon says he struggles a bit with his own jazz compositions and their skeletal nature. "I guess from writing rock tunes, I got in the habit of writing too formulaic," he says. "My main teacher, Bob Sneider, likes it because it incorporates that groove aspect."

Condon plays in various thrown-together-for-the-gig jazz outfits and hopes to slip over into the driver's seat and put together one of his own, with members harvested from his small freshman class.

"Sure, I'd love to lead a group," he says. "But to be the back-up guy would be cool, too. I'd like to play with a few horns, maybe a piano too, a rhythm section..."

But no Mint Jam for now; Condon hasn't played with the young trio since last summer. The rock urge is still there, though, as one of Condon's other dream projects is a sort of jazz-fusion group he plans on hitting area festivals with this summer when there's no school...and no homework.