Acoustic Jazz

***

A native of Northeast Ohio, guitarist Gaetano Letizia started playing when he was 15. “I played all the classic rock stuff, Hendrix and Clapton, which was happening back then,” he says. “Hendrix was close to jazz anyway. When Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea came out, I gravitated to that. I was heavy into composition. Rock was becoming more pop oriented and teeny bop and pasteurized so I said the heck with it. I couldn’t write stuff like that.” He studied music at Kent State and went to Baldwin Wallace on a composition scholarship. “I’ve circled around and realized that blues and funk relate to what I do as well. With both my jazz quartet and the Underworld Blues Band, we rip blues, rock and funk in addition to jazz.” Letizia also cites jazz greats such as Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery and Grant Green as influences. – Cleveland Scene Magazine