Dave Pietro

A native of Southboro, Massachusetts, Dave Pietro has been on the New York jazz scene since 1987. His talents as a gifted saxophonist, composer, and educator have made him an in-demand musician leading to performances at jazz clubs, jazz festivals, schools and concert halls in more than 30 countries throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America.

From 1994-2003 Dave played lead alto saxophone and recorded six CD’s with the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. He has also toured and/or recorded with the bands of Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, Maria Schneider, The Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, John Fedchock, Arturo O’Farrill and Jim Widner among others. In addition Pietro has performed with may other well known musicians such as Paul Anka, Louis Bellson, Blood Sweat & Tears, Bobby Caldwell, Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney, Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein, Chaka Khan, Liza Minnelli, James Naughton and John Pizzarelli. Dave also studies East Indian music and has performed with various groups led by Indian tablist Sandip Burman.

As a leader, Dave has released five CD’s with musicians such as Dave Holland, Kenny Werner, Ben Monder, Bill Stewart, Brian Blade, Scott Colley, David Berkman, Scott Wendholt, Duduka De Fonseca, Helio Alves and Pete McCann. "Now Becoming Then" (1999 A-Records) was called a “rich feast for listeners” by Bill Bennett of Jazz Times. “Standard Wonder-The Music of Stevie Wonder” (A-Records) was voted one of the top 10 jazz CD’s of 2001 by Bob Blumenthal of the Boston Globe and Bill Milkowski of Jazz Times and received 4 stars from Downbeat magazine. Pietro’s fifth CD “Embrace: Impressions of Brazil” (2004 A-Records) “is a triumph...one of the most satisfying Brazilian jazz mixes since the first bossa nova tsunami” according to Judith Schlesinger of AllAboutJazz.com.

Dave was selected as a semi-finalist for the first two Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Saxophone Competitions (1991 & 1996) and was a finalist in the 1995 JAZZIZ Magazine "Woodwinds on Fire" talent search. In 1996 he was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and in 2002 he was selected as runner-up in the Second Annual Jazzconnect.com International Jazz Competition. In 2005 he was the recipient of a grant from Chamber Music America’s New Works: Creation and Presentation Program and recently recorded his newly commissioned piece “The Chakra Suite” with Gary Versace, Rez Abbasi, Todd Isler, Johannes Weidenmueller and Adam Cruz. It is due to be released in October 2008.

Pete McGuinness: Mixed Bag

Read "Mixed Bag" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
June 12, 2025

With Mixed Bag, Pete McGuinness once again affirms his place among the elite of modern big band composers and arrangers, presenting a luminous tapestry of jazz idioms that ranges from the exuberantly traditional to the adventurously modern. As the title suggests, the album is a delightful potpourri. However, rather than feeling scattered or unfocused, McGuinness weaves his eclectic inclinations into a coherent and emotionally engaging statement. He brings to bear not only the encyclopedic command of a seasoned jazz craftsman ...

Album Review

The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag

Read "Mixed Bag" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 4, 2025

Award-winning arranger Pete McGuinness has chosen to name the fourth recording by his stellar New York-based Jazz Orchestra Mixed Bag, a term whose meaning may be construed as positive or less so, depending on the context. As he explains in the album's liner notes, McGuinness accentuates the positive, writing that to him, “Variety has always been the spice of life. I don't like the feeling of being pigeon-holed into a certain bag...For this project...I've included many 'bags' that I love ...

Album Review

Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound

Read "Shades of Sound" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
June 2, 2025

Shades of Sound costituisce il secondo volume del Gil Evans Project di Ryan Truesdell, inciso dal vivo al Jazz Standard di New York. Data d'incisione e organico sono gli stessi di Lines of Color, il primo volume registrato dal 13 al 18 maggio 2014 con una formazione di 23 musicisti più il leader, scelti tra i solisti più brillanti di New York: i sassofonisti Donny McCaslin, Dave Pietro, Steve Wilson, i trombettisti Mat Jodrell e Greg Gisbert, i trombonisti Ryan ...

Album Review

Ryan Truesdell / Gil Evans Project: Shades Of Sound

Read "Shades Of Sound" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
May 30, 2025

Shades of Sound is not about Ryan Truesdell recreating the past. There are excellent reasons to listen to recreations of the music of Gil Evans. As critic Bill Mathieu wrote of Evans, “The mind reels at the intricacy of his orchestral and developmental techniques. His scores are so careful, so formally well-constructed, so mindful of tradition that you feel the originals should be preserved under glass in a Florentine museum" (Mathieu in Max Harrison, Jazz Profiles, 2011). Evans ...

Album Review

Ryan Truesdell: Shades Of Sound

Read "Shades Of Sound" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
May 22, 2025

Ryan Truesdell's Shades of Sounds: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 is a triumphant continuation of his lovingly curated Gil Evans Project--a musical venture focusing on both preservation and revelation. With this latest volume, Truesdell guides us through Evans' well-known sonic landscape and deeper into the vaults, unearthing four never-before-recorded arrangements that offer a renewed understanding of the composer's nuanced brilliance. Truesdell's decision to record live at Jazz Standard is both philosophical and ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
December 30, 2024

È decisamente un periodo d'oro per l'orchestrazione jazz. Ai molti bandleader e arrangiatori emersi nel nuovo millennio, si aggiunge decisamente Christopher Zuar, che firma il secondo album confermando le doti espresse in Musings (Sunnyside), il debutto di otto anni fa. Con un diploma al New England Conservatory e un master alla Manhattan School of Music, Zuar aggiunge una spiccata fantasia nell'arricchire il modern mainstream orchestrale di nuove suggestioni. Questo progetto è stato concepito tra il 2017 e ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2024

Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar's second album, Exuberance, recounts in musical terms a twisting yet picturesque journey that began seven years earlier, in 2017, when Zuar first met his now-wife, the animator Anne Beal, at MacDowell, the famed artists' residency in New Hampshire. While the relationship “blooms" in winter, there are “moments between" and other inescapable detours until “certainty" erases any lingering doubts, “exuberance" carries the day and Zuar and Beal are united as one. Yes, the music is ...

Recording

Dave Pietro's ArtistShare Debut "New Road: Iowa Memoirs" For Grammy Nomination Consideration

Source: Brian Camelio
October 18, 2017

A gifted saxophonist/composer and key member of the Multi-Grammy Award winning Maria Schneider Orchestra, Dave Pietro spent many months in Iowa working with young students in music programs all around the state as artist-in-residence. Throughout his residency, sponsored by the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditiorium, New York-based Pietro experienced the new environment, culture, and customs of the Great Midwest. Deeply inspired by the tight-knit communities, lush landscapes, and even new ways of completing every-day tasks, Pietro composed new pieces and ...
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Education

Dave Pietro to Present Free Master Class This Thursday, June 14 at Saxquest

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
June 12, 2012

Saxophonist Dave Pietro (pictured) will present a free master class at 7:00 p.m. this Thursday, June 14 at Saxquest, 2114 Cherokee St. Pietro has released six albums of his own as a leader, and has received composing grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and from Chamber Music America's New Works Program. He's also the former lead alto saxophonist for the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, spending nearly a decade with that band and recording six CDs with them. A ...
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Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Regina Carter's Reverse Thread, Banu Gibson, Dave Pietro, Christopher McBride, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
November 4, 2010

This week's jazz and creative music offerings in St. Louis would seem to have something of a nostalgic bent, with several shows recalling early New Orleans or Swing Era jazz, and one headliner who's reaching all the way back to the music's African roots. However, there also are some more modern sounds happening around town; you just have to know where to look. So, let's go to the highlights: Tonight, violinist Regina Carter (pictured) opens a four-night stand at Jazz ...
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Performance / Tour

Dave Pietro to Play Thursday, November 4 at Highway 61 Roadhouse

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
October 15, 2010

Alto saxophonist Dave Pietro (pictured) is coming to St. Louis to perform with the Webster Groves High School Evening Jazz Combos at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 4 at the Highway 61 Roadhouse, 34 S. Old Orchard Ave. Pietro has released six CDs as a leader and toured or recorded with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, Maria Schneider, the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Arturo O'Farrill, and numerous others. The WGHS jazz combos, directed by Kevin Cole, have ...
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121

Performance / Tour

Dave Pietro's Banda Brazil at Detour Tonight Thursday March 25th 9:30pm - 1am

Source: All About Jazz
March 26, 2004

Dave Pietro's Banda Brazil celebrating their new A-Records release Embrace-Impressions of Brazil.

Featuring: Dave Pietro - saxophones Pete McCann - guitars Mike Holober - piano Leonardo Cioglia - bass Adriano Santos - drums Valtinho Anastacio - vocals & percussion Thursday March 25th 9:30pm - 1am No Cover Detour 349 East ...
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"A fine fiery saxophonist and a talented arranger. An adventerous yet lyrically reflective musician who opts for open-ended fresh compositions and group empathy." John Murph - Jazz Times Magazine

"...a superb saxophonist...a very accomplished composer." Paul Evoskevich - Saxophone Journal

"Pietro has great chops and a profound imagination, and possesses a warm, accessible, lyrical sound..." Lee Lowenfish - New York Jazz Newsletter

"Though gifted with virtuosic technique, Pietro makes his point with a lyrical sensibility grounded in the soul of evocatively crafted charts. Pietro voices clearly delineated lines with one of the most appealing alto sounds in jazz. Eschewing theatrics, he swings with a postbop abandon in which every note, every phrase, every solo rings true." Chuck Berg - Jazz Times Magazine

"A fine fiery saxophonist and a talented arranger. An adventerous yet lyrically reflective musician who opts for open-ended fresh compositions and group empathy." John Murph - Jazz Times Magazine

"...a superb saxophonist...a very accomplished composer." Paul Evoskevich - Saxophone Journal

"Pietro has great chops and a profound imagination, and possesses a warm, accessible, lyrical sound..." Lee Lowenfish - New York Jazz Newsletter

"Pietro writes tunes that are both colorful and complex, yet provide plenty of room for creative improvisation. He places his full sounding alto sax right in the middle of the proceedings, creating solos that are rooted in the jazz tradition, but are remarkably cliche free." Alan Chase - Spotlight (Portsmouth Herald)

“As a soloist, Pietro demonstrates power, energy, intelligence and humor. As a composer and band leader, he shows a love for music that swings, but maintains harmonic and melodic complexity.” Frank Alkyer - Downbeat Magazine

“Pietro is a smooth operator whether performing on soprano, alto or C-melody saxophones...he shows effortless command of his alto and it is apparent that Pietro possesses a fine compositional pen besides his laudable prowess as a skilled and quite seasoned technician. No doubt about it, Pietro is a fine soloist who owns a distinctive sound and style.” Glenn Astarita - AllAboutJazz.com

"...a radiant soloist. His improvisations take on color and emotional heat as he swings with fury." Dr. Herb Wong - Jazz Educators Journal

"The most noteworthy characteristics of Pietro's playing are the pure tone and smooth phrasing, as well as the attention to melody that pervades his solos and his pleasing, gently swinging compositions." Jon Andrews - Downbeat Magazine

"He has his own distinctive sound and approach. It's apparent that Pietro has the chops needed to keep the jazz mainstream fresh..." Lou Kannenstine - Green Mountain Jazz Messenger

"Dave is a consummate saxophonist and composer... with a very unique approach to the jazz language. He combines a netherworld of harmonic intensity and tasteful altissimo...with sensitive and tasteful blowing." Tim Price - Saxophone Journal

“On Now Becoming Then saxophonist Pietro has prepared a rich feast for listeners..” Bill Bennett - Jazz Times Magazine

“Alto saxophonist Dave Pietro possesses a beautiful sound. He also has terrific command of the saxophone, a great time feel, plenty of imagination and a gift as a composer.” Billy Kerr - Saxophone Journal

“Juba is written with a rhythmic, melodic and harmonic sophistication that everyone has come to expect from saxophone virtuoso Dave Pietro, one of the finest composers of our time. “ Wayne Goins." JAM (Jazz Ambassadors Magazine)

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Primary Instrument

Saxophone, alto

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

New York University adjunct faculty (1999-present). Hofstra University adjunct faculty (2001-present). For more information go to www.davepietro.com.

Clinic/Workshop Information

Dave is a Conn-Selmer artist and has given concerts and workshops at hundreds of schools across the country. For more information go to www.davepietro.com.