Richie Zellon

RICHIE ZELLON (Guitarist, Composer,& Educator), was born in Lima, Peru where he recorded his first album, "Landologia" (Retrato en Blanco y Negro) in 1982 for the Fonovox label. The recording featured Zellon's unique compositions merging Afro-Peruvian music with jazz for the first time. Legendary American jazz musician, Jimmy Heath who met Zellon during one of his performances in Peru and was intrigued by his unique style, wrote the liner notes. Lima's leading newspaper, El Comercio, called it “..a milestone in Peruvian contemporary music”.

In the years following his national recording debut with the Songosaurus label, he has spent most of his time as producer for dozens of Latin Jazz CD projects. He has recorded and/or performed in the company of such world-class artists as Paquito D' Rivera, Alex Acuña, Danilo Perez, David Liebman, Dave Samuels, Sam Rivers, Jerry Bergonzi, Abraham Laboriel, Justo Almario, Bob Moses, George Garzone, Manfredo Fest, Jeff Berlin and David Amram among others.

Due to his innovations within the evolving Latin Jazz field, he has been profiled internationally in various books on its history: "El Diccionario de Latin Jazz" by Nat Chediak , the French book on Latin Jazz, "Caliente" by Luc Delannoy ,"Mixtura: jazz con sabor peruano" by Jorge Olazo, "Cuban Fire: The Story of Salsa and Latin Jazz" and "Jazz Latino" by Isabelle Leymarie ,"Jazz Jews" by Mike Gerber, as well as "Oye Como Va" by Jose Arteaga .

From 2004 to 2007 he served as Professor of Jazz Guitar Studies at Florida International University in Miami prior to which he fulfilled the same position at the University of South Florida (Tampa,FL.). He was also on the faculty at ARTI (Audio Recording Tech Institute) in Orlando for 2 consecutive years.

In addition to being a BMIwriter and publisher, Zellon has been writing a regular column on Latin American music for ""Jazz Improv"magazine since 1999.