Born and raised in New York and a graduate of New England Conservatory, Ricci has studied and performed and various styles of global music that he integrates with his jazz foundation leading to a brilliant career as a guitarist, arranger and producer in the USA and Brasil.
From the 1980’s on, he has performed at some of the most prestigious jazz clubs in NYC sharing the stage or studio with many great names on the scene such as Michael Wolff, Dennis Irwin, Sonny Fortune, David Kikoski, Harold Vick, Victor Jones, Santi DeBriano, Mino Cinelu, Mike Clark, Bakithi Kumalo, Larry Willis and so many others in clubs such as Mezzrow’s, Fat Tuesday’s, Visiones, Birdland, Zinc Bar, Zanzibar, NuBlu, the Iridium and the Blue Note.
In a November ’86 show at the Blue Note, Paul’s performance alongside the pianist Jaki Byard earned him a special mention in the New York Times by the noted jazz critic John S. Wilson who singled out his "...fascinating unaccompanied performance of Lover Man"
He has also worked with many Brazilian artists in NYC including legendary drummers Dom Um Romao and Edison Machado, Luizao Maia, Mauro Refosco, Helio Alves and with vocalists Bebel Gilberto and Astrud Gilberto, with whom he also performed on tour in Asia and Europe as guitarist, arranger and composer. In 1991 in a tribute concert to Stan Getz at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Paul accompanied Astrud Gilberto with an all star band of Roy Haynes, Gary Burton, Kenny Barron and George Mraz.
In July ’93 he played in the famed NY Public Theater’s "Shakespeare In The Park" production of "Measure For Measure" starring Kevin Kline in a Latin Caribbean musical adaptation of the play resulting in a series of shows with the noted Latin jazz drummer Bobby Sanabria who has received multiple Grammy nominations for best Latin Jazz album.
Ricci’s continued musical curiosity led him from Brazilian and Latin music to African music. From 1993-1997, he was part of the African Blue Note band led by veteran drummer Jo-Jo Kuo which in addition to being a fixture in NY`s jazz clubs also accompanied noted African recording artists such as Coumba Sidibe and Sekouba Kandia Kouyate in their NY Concerts.
His experience with Caribbean and African music led to an important 1995 European tour with singer and activist Harry Belafonte. To this day he is part of the Belafonte Alumni Band that has performed in the NY’s iconic Town Hall in commemoration of Belafonte’s work.
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In 1997, Ricci called on several top names in the jazz world who had offered to collaborate with him in the past. The recordings from that time were not fully realized into a record release and the call of the road put them aside. During the pandemic lockdown, Paul was afforded the time away from touring to revisit the project and the years of experience that had ensued provided deeper clarity of the path that fate had set him upon.
After so many years of living in Brazil, the thought to compliment those 1997 session with a second chapter. The resulting tunes were packaged together and the result is “The Path” on his Origin records.
It is an inspired and unique blend of Ricci’s Jazz, Latin, African and Brazilian influences on original compositions interpreted by the likes of Anthony Jackson, Steve Jordan, Randy Brecker, Manolo Badrena, Alex Foster, Jay Rodriguez, Jurim Moreira, Abdoulaye Diabate, Michael Wolff, André Mehmari and Hugo Fattoruso. The blend of Uruguayan Candombe with a Malian singer and a Cameroonian drummer wrapped up with a jazz guitar and Anthony Jackson’s bass is just one indication of Ricci’s road well travelled through the various cultures that music has to offer.
In his travels to Brasil in 1996 he encountered and started a musical collaboration with the Italian singer Mafalda Minnozzi that soon transformed into a solid and lasting musical partnership spanning many years with 20 CD’s and 2 DVD`s recorded as guitarist, arranger, musical director and co-producer in band settings and in duo as the "eMPathia Jazz Duo”. He produced Minnozzi’s 4 CD’s for the USA jazz market with the likes of David Liebman, Joe Locke, Roberto Menescal, John Patitucci and Don Byron, enjoying extensive airplay on that country’s leading Jazz radio stations such as WBGO, WRTI, WUCF, KNTU, KUVO, KJAZ among others.
The most recent RIOFONIC, that he produced for Minnozzi, placed #27 for the year 2025 on the USA JazzWeek radio charts.
Away from the recording studio his collaboration with Mafalda includes countless television appearances on all the major Brazilian networks, hundreds of successful concerts in clubs, theaters and festivals in S. America (Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Paraguay), Europe (Italy, France, Austria and Germany) and the USA (NYC, Woodstock, Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix, Tucson, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, Miami and Boston). As composer, arranger and performer he contributed to soundtracks on various TV series and major box office films in Brasil.
Other highlights of his live collaborations with Mafalda include a special 2011 appearance at NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for gala opening of the "Guitar Heroes" exhibit dedicated to the jazz guitar legacy of luthiers Monteleone, D’Aquisto and D’Angelico. Ricci continues to this day to be a force at various festivals dedicated to the music created on the Archtop jazz guitar. His perfomance with Minnozzi in the film “The Chisels Are Calling” shot at the Museum of the Violin in Cremona, Italy highlights his contribution to the evolution of the archtop guitar in all styles of music. As performer with Mafalda and as master class instructor at the NYU Jazz Department and festivals, his unique style is appreciated by The Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival, Acoustic Guitar Village in Cremona, Italy and The Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Convention.
In Brazil their productions including Brazilian legends such as Guinga, Paulo Moura, Leny Andrade, Milton Nascimento, Roberto Menescal and many others.
As arranger, Paul has continued to draw on the influences of Brazilian, Latin, Italian, Jazz and African music in the fusion of an original style via Mafalda’s powerful and athletic voice.
In parallel to his work with Mafalda, Paul has continued to collaborate with other artists in various musical projects in Brazil and the US:
He appeared on Bakithi Kumalo’s (noted bassist from Paul Simon’s “Graceland”) CD “In Front Of My Eyes”
He recorded with Ivo Meirelles’ "Funk`N Lata" a noted band from Mangueira (Rio De Janeiro’s traditional cradle of Samba) in a project dedicated to the works of Jorge Ben.
As arranger, he contributed several arrangements to saxophonist Butch Thomas’s concerts at the noted NY Jazz club Iridium in the jazz adaptation of "The Music of Sting", a project featuring Kenwood Dennard, Corey Glover, TM Stevens, and Lew Soloff among others.
As guitarist and bassist he also recorded several songs on the CD “From Me To You” (2013) by award winning composer and singer Kathryn Bostic which also features Darryl Jones of the Rolling Stones, singer Keb’ Mo and Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun from the group Living Colour.
To this day, Paul continues to share stages with some of the top instrumentalists in Brazil and NY,
As well as his continued love of performing, Paul continues to dedicate his lifetime experience in the research and evolution of the "voice" of the Jazz guitar in collaboration with the noted luthier Saul Koll who has built a special model co-designed him and Ricci.
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