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Born
in New Bedford, MA., Rick Britto is a well known jazz
educator and musician in the New England area.
As a jazz player, Rick has performed with
many artists in the New England area including Karl
Berger, Santi Debriano, Harold
Jones, Bobby Greene, Jimmy Lomba, Jim
Robitaille, Semenya
McCord, John
Harrison, Chris Poudrier, Bruce Gertz, Jackie
Santos, Dave Zinno, Herb King, Matt
Richard, Kenny Wensel, Lou Columbo, Paul Delnero,
Todd Baker, Jack Mena, Frank
Wilkins, Lavene Simms, Alon
Yavnai, Lonnie
Gasperini, Marcelle
Gauvin and numerous other local musicians.
Nationally he has been double billed with
such notables as Buddy Rich, Ray Brown, Rosemary Clooney,
The Artie Shaw Band and Count Basie's Orchestra.
As an educator at both the University
of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Wheaton
College, Rick teaches saxophone, jazz piano, jazz
ensemble and African-American Music History. He also coaches the jazz bands for New
Bedford High and Old
Rochester Regional High Schools and teaches private
lessons for piano and music theory at The
Symphony Music Shop in North Dartmouth, MA.
Rick
owns a recording studio, "Saurus
Studio", in New Bedford, MA where he has
produced numerous commercials for radio & TV and
recordings for many local artists. He composed and
produced the musical soundtrack of "Profiles Of
Living History" a video documentary on Black
History for the Black Heritage Foundation of New Bedford
funded by The Polaroid Corporation.
His most recent studio projects include digitally
mastering a CD for
Tazinho a well known Cape Verdean
musician from the New Bedford area. CD mastering for
a new book,
Music of South India published by Professor
Matthew Allen of
Wheaton College
released by Oxford University Press.
Scoring for a new book by
Prof. Paul
Asterlitz,
"Jazz
Consciousness Music, Race, and Humanity"
by
Wesleyan
University Press
distributed by University Press of
New England.His jazz composition, “Hot Summer’s
Night” is on Dan
Moretti's CD "Saxual” on which Rick also
plays keys plus two of Rick’s jazz compositions
“Nova Samba and “Xumusca” are on the “Whaling
City Sound Superband Live” CD.
Performance
on new CD release, "Holy City" with The
Lord's Orphans, best described as a modern day
American version of Pink Floyd with a mix of other
influences that include Peter Gabriel, late Beatles, The
Doors, Alan Parsons Project and Led Zeppelin.
Rick's avante garde jazz trio
"TRINE" featuring
fellow musicians Jim Robitaille on guitar and Chris
Poudrier on drums just released a new CD on the
Fuller Street Music label called
"POLITICS".
He
is also on a new CD release by Andy McWain. "The
Andy McWain Ensemble: RESEMBLANCE" released
this Spring 08. It features eight musicians (including
Sofia Koutsovitis, Assif Tsahar, Rick Britto, Chris
Poudrier, Jeremy Udden, David Landoni, and Albey
Balgochian) in various combinations from solo piano,
duos, and trios to sextet.
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