The Press Room presents: Ray Demarco and Friends

Description

The group consists of Mike Pellecchia on saxes, clarinet and flute, George Blodgett on upright bass, James "Bat" Kaddy on drums, and myself on piano and vocals.
I have been playing around the Seacoast many years I moved here in the 70s and was a folksinger playing guitar and banjo. Imagine that! My first seacoast piano gig was at Rosa's for Ralph Rosa.....telling you too much!
I studied piano as a kid starting at 9 years old on and off with different teachers. I did a degree in Psychology and graduate school in science--research on the brain and nervous system. Then decided to play music which is where I belonged. After playing a lot of gigs and working steadily I became interested in jazz and took lessons from Tom Gallant who at that time was teaching a Berklee School of music but fortunately for me lived in Exeter. I took for about a year and a half. Then...I think that was around the early 80s. I took lessons again for little while just a year or 2 before he passed away which was 1998. I got to know him quite well in the 90s. We were both active in the Seacoast Jazz Society. I was Vice President, and President and Tom was always on the board involved in everything we did. Sometimes it was featuring him. You probably know that he was the founder of the Sunday night jazz at the Pressroom and ran it for many years.
In the past my group was called "Street Level Swing". I stopped using the name because it narrowed the kind on music. We played many kinds of music not just swing. A lot of people just know my name from years of solo playing and also years of being a piano tuner/technician which I did along with playing.
Way too much..... Important things playing many years around the seacoast solo and in different combinations and studied with Tom Gallant.