GILLIAN DeLEAR - DRUMS

Originally from Menlo Park CA, Gillian De Lear began playing drums at age ten. She has played in many local and touring bands with styles ranging from Afro-pop, country, jazz, blues, and rock. In 1995, Gillian won a TAMMIE, Tucson Area Music Award, for best country group with the band Girls With Guitars. In 2004, Gillian played with The Jazz Chicks, who opened for Shirley Horn at the Women’s Primavera Jazz Festival. Gillian moved to Boston, MA in 2005 and has finished a Bachelor degree in Professional Music at Berklee College of Music. 2009 Gillian finished a cd of original avantgarde free jazz. It is a cd of duets with her favorite musicians in Boston. 2012 she finshed a cd of original material for the Gillian De Lear Jazz Quintet called Genie In A Bottle Sundays she plays the morning service for Hope Central Church in Jamaica Plain, MA. Other bands she plays regularly with include: Just Friends -Jazz Sextet - Weymouth MA Bopkick - Jazz Quartet - Norwood MA Alison Manion - Blues and Jazz influenced orignal songs with twang - Sudbury MA Field Trip - Instrumental Funk Fusion Band - Boston MA Pocket Big Band - Haverhill MA Bright Moments - Charles Mingus tribute band - Salem MA Currently Gillian teaches in her home private lessons for piano and drums. In addition she has a small recording studio called Nacho Mama Studios.

 

 

 

SCOTT DAVIDSON - GUITAR

Scott began his early programming career on Java. After a brief landscaping stint, he moved on to greener pastures in the form of a warm gray cubicle in an industrial park in Woburn, MA. He spent 5 years there honing his C++ skills on haptics-enabled CAD software. He then followed several colleagues to another company, this time working out of his bedroom. It is there that his hygiene slowly degraded into its current nadir. He is conversational in many useful military-speak codes and acronyms. 

 

 

 

 

CHRIS PITTS - SAXOPHONE

Saxophonist Chris Pitts from Detroit made NYC, SF and Paris, his homes before moving to Boston. Jazz critic Willard Jenkins calls Pitts: "A saxophonist deeply immersed in the total jazz tradition." He has performed at major jazz festivals and clubs with notables; Dizzy Gillespie, Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Clark Terry, Bob Hurst, Regina Carter, Marcus Belgrave, Roy Brooks, J.C Heard, and Rodney Whitaker. Pitts also performed with entertainers: Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Gladys Knight, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha Reeves, Lou Rawls, and even President Bill Clinton. Pitts founded the San Francisco based Contemporary Jazz Orchestra in 1995 which performed every Monday night until 2008 when Jazz at Pearls closed. The band released 3 recordings. 

 

 

 

RICHARD SHAW - BASS

Richard Shaw fell in love with the bass when he was 10-years old, listening to the Beatles. During high school, he often ducked out of extra-curricular activities play a friend’s bass; and during college, he worked part-time to save enough to buy an old, beat-up Fender Jazz bass. He dropped out of college to play what’s now referred to as “Classic R&B”, playing in back-up bands for Johnny Taylor and Bettye Swann, and made his living as a musician for a number of years before teaching himself computer programming and software development, and founding a world-class consulting firm which he ran for 20 years.After a 25-year lapse, he returned to music with the goal of playing jazz. He’s studied rhythm with Boston drummer Bob Gullotti, and now plays an electric upright bass, and holds the bass seat for a number of Boston jazz groups.A founding member of the Jazz Barracudas, Richard’s affiliation with drummer Gillian Delear goes back over 8 years, and his association with guitarist Scott Davidson goes back 5 years.