Latin and jazz guitarist Julian Catford’s career has lasted long enough that he’s performed alongside since-departed greats including Cab Calloway and Rosemary Clooney and he’s still actively performing in public, including in his second home of Port Townsend.

Catford has lived in Seattle for the past 40 years. He taught classical and jazz guitar at Seattle Pacific University for 21 years, and at North Seattle College for a number of years, but he bought a home in Port Townsend six years ago. He moved here full time three years ago.

Since then, Catford has performed regularly at local venues ranging from the Bishop Block Bottle Shop and Garden to Vintage by Port Townsend Vineyards, where he’ll be performing for free on Thursday, Feb. 6.

Although Catford still performs for larger events in Seattle, he said he appreciates being able to play with local talents such as Al Bergstein on the mandolin, since they share an affinity for the Brazilian choro style of instrumental music.

Even when he’s not performing in public, Catford said he makes an effort to practice every day, just as he has since he first took up music in seventh and eighth grade. His journey toward Latin and jazz music was preceded by his move Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was born, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he started string class in junior high school. A classmate, “a girl who probably had a crush on me,” he laughed, gently nudged him from the string bass to the guitar as his instrument of choice.

“It was easier to carry around than a string bass,” said Catford, who went on to study at Thomas Jefferson College, a since-defunct sister institution of Evergreen State College in Michigan.

Catford’s lessons in classical guitar were expanded by studying under legendary Spanish classical guitarist Andres Segovia in Grand Rapids, and fit his preference for acoustic blues over the harder rock music that was fashionable during that era.

Catford said he also benefited from the many established musical talents he encountered at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan, from Motown greats to Latin talents such as Brazilian composer and conductor Heitor Villa-Lobos.

“I include elements of flamenco music in my sound, but I can’t properly say I’m a flamenco musician, because that’s a whole discipline all its own,” Catford said. “I suppose what I appreciate about Latin, jazz and blues music is that they all harbor a bittersweet longing at heart. In the same way, a lot of my pieces are introspective but upbeat, with that bounce from flamenco and jazz music.”

What Catford enjoys about performing on the Olympic Peninsula, and in the Port Townsend area in particular, is not just the number of people out in the community who “are deeply into music,” but also the number of quality venues that are available where musicians can perform.

“Vintage has live music multiple nights each week,” Catford said. “There’s a big world of music right here in our backyards, and just by listening to other musicians here, it gives me ideas for my own music, almost too many.”

Catford promised audiences elements of American jazz, blues and even swing, as well as flamenco and other Latin forms, including tango, Bossa Nova, valse, choro, and milonga. All of it is drawn from his long-standing love of musical history and improvisation.

Catford’s other performances have been at Bumbershoot, the Juan de Fuca Festival, the Seattle Opera and Seattle Art Museum, alongside talents such as award-winning Argentine guitarist Hernan Renaudo.