Richie Vitale (born September 23, 1954; Rochester, New York) is an American jazz trumpeter, arranger, and composer.
Vitale played trumpet in the 2010 Broadway show Come Fly Away [1] with a 19-piece big band playing the music of Frank Sinatra and dancing of the Twyla Tharp Dance Troup. Vitale recorded his first album "Vitalogy" and two following CDs "Full Circle" and "Slow Groove" for Gut String Records. He has led his quartet/quintet on tours of Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Vitale has taught Clinics and Master Classes at the Eastman School of Music, instructed the Jazz Ensemble at Long Island University and was Brass Instructor at Manhattan School of Music and Long Island University and is recently retired as jazz professor teaching trumpet and ensemble at New Jersey City University.
Vitale was a trumpet soloist with Frank Sinatra [2] for five years and has also performed with Tony Bennett, Buddy Rich, James Taylor and Sting. He was featured soloist with the Vanguard Orchestra, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, the Basie Band, and the Ellington Band.
Worked with Frank Wess, Jack Bruce and the Chris Byars Octet. Currently, working in the NYC metropolitan area and traveling as an artist.
As leader
As sideman
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Bunny Berigan, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, and Django Reinhardt.
Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You". His technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. He is best remembered for standards such as "Opus One", "This Love of Mine" featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, "Song of India", "Marie", "On Treasure Island", and his biggest hit single, "I'll Never Smile Again".
Neal Paul Hefti was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger. He wrote music for The Odd Couple movie and TV series and for the Batman TV series.
The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States, especially for teenagers. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, and Fletcher Henderson, and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette, Russ Morgan and Isham Jones. An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the drummers Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.
Jon Faddis is an American jazz trumpet player, conductor, composer, and educator, renowned for both his playing and for his expertise in the field of music education. Upon his first appearance on the scene, he became known for his ability to closely mirror the sound of trumpet icon Dizzy Gillespie, who was his mentor along with pianist Stan Kenton and trumpeter Bill Catalano.
Secondo "Conte" Candoli was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast. He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and in Doc Severinsen's NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He played with Gerry Mulligan, and on Frank Sinatra's TV specials. He also recorded with Supersax, a Charlie Parker tribute band that consisted of a saxophone quintet, the rhythm section, and either a trumpet or trombone.
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16- to 18-piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 1950s, the band survived long past the big band era itself and the death of Basie in 1984. It continues under the direction of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart.
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" is a 1955 popular song composed by David Mann, with lyrics by Bob Hilliard. It was introduced as the title track of Frank Sinatra's 1955 album In the Wee Small Hours.
Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder was an American composer and author.
Richie Pratt was an American jazz drummer. He embarked upon a career as a professional musician on the New York scene in the early 1970s, it was as much due to an unanticipated sporting injury as anything else. Pratt was born into a musical family and grew up in the Kansas City metro city of Olathe, Kansas. He first studied music via the piano, as well as attended various music camps as a youth prior to attending college as a music major at the University of Kansas.
Joseph Bowie is an American jazz trombonist and vocalist. The brother of trumpeter Lester Bowie, Joseph is known for leading the jazz-punk group Defunkt and for membership in the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder is an album of compositions by Alec Wilder, conducted by Frank Sinatra, released in 1946. This was Sinatra's recording debut as a conductor. He later conducted a full symphony orchestra on Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color (1956), including two further Wilder compositions.
Henderson Chambers was an American jazz trombonist.
Roger O'Neal Ingram is a jazz trumpeter, educator, author, and instrument designer. He played trumpet for the orchestras of Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Charles, and Harry Connick Jr.
The Danish Radio Big Band, often referred to as the Radioens Big Band is a radio ensemble and big band founded in Copenhagen in 1964 at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR).
Gregory Fritze is a former chair of the Composition Department at the Berklee College of Music. Fritze has also been a performer with Boston Ballet, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and other orchestras.
Anthony Branker is an American musician and educator of Caribbean descent.
Gary E. Grant was an American trumpet player, composer and producer, and session musician who played on hundreds of commercial recordings.
Christopher Byars is an American jazz saxophonist. Formerly a child opera singer, Byars has toured for the U.S. State Department as a jazz ambassador with frequent collaborator Ari Roland.