Harvey Pittel began the study of music at Clifford Street Elementary School in Los Angeles at age seven. After early instruction with Chesley Mills, he went on to study with Kalman Bloch, Principal Clarinetist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Franklyn Stokes, Bass Clarinetist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Anthony Desiderio and Mitchell Lurie at the University of Southern California. Upon graduation from USC, Mr. Pittel studied with Fred Hemke at Northwestern University where he received the Master of Music Degree in Saxophone Performance.
As a member of the West Point Military Academy Band, he began his studies with Joseph Allard of the Juilliard School and was later mentored by the great Kapellmeister, pianist and conductor Jens Nygaard of the Jupiter Symphony in New York City.
Consistently acknowledged as America’s foremost classical saxophonist, Harvey Pittel has popularized the very concept of the saxophone in concert and has elevated his instrument to a new level of appreciation by lovers of fine music.
Commanding an enormous and diverse portion of the saxophone’s vast solo and chamber repertoire, Mr. Pittel performs music written for the instrument by composers as varied as Debussy, Hovhaness, Babbitt, Villa-Lobos and Glazunov, as well as his own transcriptions of baroque and classical works by Bach, Marcello, Loeillet and others. With the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, he performs chamber music as well as the popular saxophone repertoire of the vaudeville, ragtime and swing eras. In addition, he has added to the instrument’s body of work through commissions from composers such as Milton Babbit and Luciano Berio and through performances of numerous premieres.
His discography includes twenty-eight recordings of duos, trios, quartets and concertos with orchestra, and he has been featured on soundtracks of several films including Woody Allen’s MANHATTAN. In addition, he has been a guest on the Today show and a featured artist on LIVE FROM LINCLOLN CENTER and SPOLETO/U.S.A. telecasts.
His Harvey Pittel Trio and Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet have appeared in hundreds of concerts throughout North America and around the world.
He has appeared as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic, Boston, Denver and Seattle Symphonies, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, and a host of others, under the direction of such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Neville Marriner and Michael Tilson Thomas. Overseas, he has appeared with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, the London Sinfonietta and Bergen Philharmonic, as well as in recital in Mexico, throughout Europe and the Far East.
His recitals around the world, including eight major New York appearances, have brought Mr. Pittel such praise from the New York Times as, “He combined stunning virtuosity with impeccable musicianship, in addition to which he produced the most beautiful and pure tone I have ever heard from a saxophone,” “the sort of technical mastery which refuses to call attention to itself,” “The Segovia of the Saxophone,” and “A master on his instrument.”
His recent performances include an appearance with The New York Philharmonic Soloists at Lincoln Center, solo recitals, master classes and concerts with The Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet.
The recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, two Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund grants and a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant, Harvey Pittel has twice been presented as a winner of the Concert Artist Guild competition. His other awards include a silver medal earned in the Concourse International d’Execution Musicale in Geneva. He presented six seasons of concerts as an Affiliate Artist. His festival participation has included Spoleto/U.S.A., Brevard, Aspen, Ojai, Tanglewood and Marlboro, the latter at the invitation of the late Rudolf Serkin.
As an educator, Mr. Pittel has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the Mannes College of Music in New York City, Montclair State College in New Jersey, Boston University, and California State Universities at Fullerton and Los Angeles.
Roger Greenberg received degrees from the Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, and went on to a varied musical career.
He was a member of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the CBS-TV Band in Philadelphia, and during military service with the West Point Band, he was a member of the West Point Saxophone Quartet. For ten years he performed for television and motion pictures at Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers studios in Los Angeles under such composers as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin and others. He was a long-time member of the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, touring in most of the U.S. states and many foreign countries.
He performed many times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, also with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and others under some of the world’s great conductors including Zubin Mehta, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Philippe Entremont and Luciano Berio.
A solo CD of music by William Schmidt, “The Art of the Tenor Saxophone,” is available on WIM Records. With nineteen nationally, or internationally distributed recordings to his credit, he can also be heard with the Los Angeles Saxophone Quartet, the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, the Westwood Wind Quintet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Denver Symphony.
A classical saxophonist with a jazz background, his activities have ranged from co-leader of the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble to nightclub performer for many famous entertainers, especially as a member of the Grossinger’s show band in the Catskill Mountains of New York. He also toured with the Four Seasons Rock and Roll Show as a member of the backup band.
Publications include a book on musicianship, original compositions, arrangements, transcriptions, articles, and music reviews. Roger Greenberg is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Northern Colorado, where he taught for 24 years. He currently works on saxophone design and development for Eastman Saxophones.
Jeff Benedict is currently a Professor Emeritus of Music at the Califoirnia State University, Los Angeles. He holds a B.M. and an M.A. from the Lamont School of Music and a D.M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student of Harvey Pittel. He is in demand as a classical recitalist and clinician and performs regularly with the Orion Saxophone Quartet. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Tanglewood Fellowship Orchestra.
He is an accomplished jazz performer as well, currently recording and performing in Los Angeles. In 2014 he formed the Jeff Benedict Big Big Band, which has released 2 CDs, most recently “The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful,” which ranked in the top 10 for the year 2020 in the Roots Music Report. His group with Dave Askren, The Dave Askren/Jeff Benedict Quartet, has released 4 CDs that has received numerous favorable reviews and have had frequent airplay on jazz radio. In 2013, he produced the CD, “Among Friends” by the Orion Saxophone Quartet, featuring guest Gary Foster. He has also recorded two albums under his own name on the Resurgent Music record label, Castle Creek Shuffle and Standard Fare, and has produced a latin-jazz recording for Sea Breeze Records, “Rhubumba” with special guest Bobby Shew. He is also featured on recordings by the Dave Askren Quartet, the Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, and by the Bobby Rodriguez Big Band.
He has performed with many jazz artists including Toshiko Aki- yoshi, Randy Brecker, Nick Brignola, Eddie Daniels, Carl Fontana, Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Hubert Laws, Wynton Marsalis, Bob Mintzer, Claudio Roditi, Diane Schuur, Lew Soloff, Billy Taylor, Mel Torme, Bill Watrous, Mark Whitfield and Joe Williams.
Charlie Richard is a Professor of Music at Riverside City College where he is responsible for the award-winning jazz program and saxophone instruc- tion. He has also served as Department Chair and Interim Dean for Fine and Performing Arts. After graduating from Ramona HS (Riverside), he attended RCC and received an Associate in Arts degree. He then received his Bachelor and Masters degrees from California State University, Los Angeles and later completed graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin before accepting a position at RCC in 1990. In 2019 he was awarded Alumnus of the Year by Riverside City College.
RCC Jazz Ensembles under Richard’s direction have received numerous awards and acknowledgements, including multiple 1st place awards at the Reno and Fullerton Jazz festivals. Most recently the RCC Jazz Ensemble received downbeat awards for outstanding performance for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.
While a student he received the downbeat magazine award for Best Extended Original Jazz Composition. The Hawk’s Out, an album featuring his compositions and arrangements, was selected by New York’s Cadence Magazine as the Outstanding Big Band Recording of the year (1998). A later album by the Hawk-Richard Jazz orchestra also received positive critical reviews. Richard’s music has been performed in many venues by various ensembles, including the Dallas Wind Symphony. He has been a long-time member of the faculty for the Idyllwild Arts Summer Jazz Camp and is a Past-President of the California Unit of the International Association for Jazz Education. In the winter of 2018 he recorded over one hundred instructional videos for saxophone instruction for the Musician’s Toolkit.
Artists Richard has performed with include: Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Orion Sax- ophone Quartet, Long Beach Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Lou Rawls, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Jeff Benedict Big Band, Legends of Swing, Doris Day, Redlands Symphony Orchestra, Mark Masters Jazz Composers Orchestra and Hip Pocket.
