Jazz Calendar

DAN MORETTI & BRAZILIA:

Dan Moretti, sax
Maxim Lubarsky, keyboards
Oscar Stagnaro, bass
Steve Langone, drums

THU | OCTOBER 8 | 6 PM

At the tender age of 13, and as a freshman member of The Rhode Island Youth All-State Jazz Band, saxophonist Dan Moretti had the distinctive opportunity to perform at the world renowned Newport Jazz Festival. This experience was so exciting for him, that it launched the beginning of a life-long passion to perform, write and produce music. By 1970, Dan was able to attend University of Rhode Island for two years; he was the university’s first sax major.

From 1972 to 1974, Dan attended The Rhode Island School of Music (RISM) on full scholarship. From 1974 - 1976, Dan toured the U.S. with a 9 piece funk band called Back Bay Brew. By 1978, Dan had completed his BA degree in Music Education with a minor in Arranging and Composition from The Union Institute in Cincinnati. Throughout the mid ‘70s and the early ‘80s, he continued to perform and teach in the northeast. However, also, during that time, Dan worked as a sideman with some of the best known soul and R&B stars who recorded for Atlantic Records and Motown. Here are a few of the artists he performed with during those years: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, The Four Tops and The Temptations.

In 1981, he opened Celebration Sounds recording studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island [as co-owner] and it was there that he honed his engineering, production and compositional skills for the next 12 years producing and writing commercial music spanning many musical genres.

In 1985, Dan’s own recording career was launched with his international release of Sometime Inside, recorded at his studio in Pawtucket. This all-original, self-produced fusion-jazz album was released on San Francisco’s Black Hawk Records. Along with straight-ahead players like Stan Getz and Phil Woods, Dan became Black Hawk’s ‘fusion’ act.

In 1989, Dan traveled to Yaroslavl, Russia as part of The International Arts for Peace organization and in 1991 he won the 2nd annual Providence Phoenix Reader’s Poll for Best Local Jazz and Best Local Producer and in 1992 he won the poll again for Best Local Jazz.

Dan became a leader in the “jazz renaissance” in Providence, Rhode Island in the 1990s. During this time Dan received numerous citations from the Governor and House of Representatives in Rhode Island and the Mayor of Providence for his contributions to the music scene and the promotion of jazz in Rhode Island. Some of the Awards he received during that time were: The 1991 State of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations Citation from the Rhode Island House of Representatives in recognition of his efforts to promote jazz locally and nationally. He also received A Proclamation from The City of Providence in 1994 and A State Proclamation from the Governor in 1994 for the promotion and performance of jazz in Rhode Island.

In 1996, Dan was hired as an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston where he is now a full-time Professor in the Contemporary Writing and Production department and now finishing his 26th year at the college.
Throughout his career, Dan also toured the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and Russia performing and presenting clinics and seminars as well. His musical influences range from jazz and classical to funk and Latin-jazz and New Orleans grooves. Since the late ‘70s, he performed or recorded with a wide variety of artists across the musical spectrum. A short list includes: Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Robert Plant, Kid Rock, Dr. John, Cornell Dupree, Jerry Jemmott, The Temptations, Mike Stern, Omar Hakim, Jimmy Cobb, Dave Samuels, Dave Liebman, Marvin Stamm, Nat Adderly, The Crusaders and Nicholas Payton.

Dan’s love of all styles of jazz has contributed to his performances in straight-ahead jazz as-well-as Latin, funk and soul. This is evident through listening to his collection of 21 solo recordings. In 2009, Dan was awarded the prestigious MacColl-Johnson Fellowship for Jazz Composers through the Rhode Island Foundation. This enabled him to write and produce a major project in 2011 with an Italian traditional orchestra called The Piccola Orchestra La Viola (POLV), bringing jazz together with his Italian roots. This album was released on an Italian label called Dodocilune and in the summer of 2011, Dan traveled to Italy to perform a tour in support of that release. Another album, Dan Moretti & The Hammond Boys Live at Chan’s, was released in 2014 and hit #13 on the jazz charts nationally and was also included on the CMJ radio charts for 20 weeks.

In 2006, he was given Berklee’s “Curriculum Development Award” for his popular on-campus course known as "Groove Writing.” He has also been at the forefront of distance learning at Berklee where in 2003, he created the Berklee Online version of his course "Arranging Contemporary Styles.” He has since been teaching this course to students all over the world. In 2012, he converted this same course back to Berklee with one of the first on-line on-campus courses. In 2008, his book Producing and Mixing Contemporary Jazz was released on Hal Leonard-Berklee Press. In 2010, Dan also collaborated with Matthew Nicholl and Oscar Stagnaro on the book Essential Grooves for Sher Music; the book is now required for all Groove Writing sections at Berklee.

For the last 25 years, Dan has been active in Europe and in the states performing his music and presenting seminars in Italy, Turkey, England, Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Africa, Ecuador and Gibraltar as-well-as being a sideman with artists like Nile Rodgers and Chic. In the summer of 2006, he also had the opportunity to perform in the house band at the 40th anniversary of The Montreux Jazz Festival’s Tribute to Atlantic records with Nile Rodgers. The performers he played with, wrote charts for and backed up were: Robert Plant, Stevie Nicks, Chaka Khan, Kid Rock, George Duke, Solomon Burke and Steve Winwood.