RICK BRITTO: Biography

Born in New Bedford, MA, Rick Britto is a well known jazz educator and musician in the New England area.

As a jazz player, Rick has performed with many local artists in the New England area including Bobby Greene, Jimmy Lomba, Eddie Rodrigues, Semenya McCord, John Harrison, Jackie Santos, Dave Zinno, Herb King, Matt Richard, Kenny Wenzel, Lou Columbo, Paul Delnero, Todd Baker, Jack Mena, Frank Wilkins, John Wallace, Alon Yavnai, Jim Robitaille, and numerous other local musicians.

Nationally he has been double billed with such notables as Buddy Rich, Ray Brown, Rosemary Clooney, The Artie Shaw Band and Count Basie's Orchestra.

As an educator at both the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Wheaton College, Rick teaches saxophone, jazz piano, jazz ensemble and African-American Music History.

He also coaches the jazz bands for New Bedford and Old Rochester Regional High Schools and teaches private lessons for piano and music theory at The Symphony Music Shop in North Dartmouth, MA.

Rick owns a recording studio, "Saurus Studio", in New Bedford, MA where he has produced numerous commercials for radio & TV and recordings for many local artists. He composed and produced the musical soundtrack of Profiles Of Living History , a video documentary on Black History for the Black Heritage Foundation of New Bedford funded by The Polaroid Corporation. His most recent studio projects include digitally mastering a CD for Tazinho, a well known Cape Verdean musician from the New Bedford area and CD mastering for a new book, Music of South India, published by Professor Matthew Allen of Wheaton College, released by Oxford Publishing.

His jazz composition, Hot Summer's Night, is on Dan Moretti's CD Saxual on which Rick also plays keys. Two of Rick's jazz compositions, Nova Samba and Xumusca are on the Whaling City Sound Superband Live CD released last year.