Born: February 19, 1954 Primary Instrument: Guitar
”BAIL!” is my first album, recorded in late 1999 to document my compositions and my ensemble work with San Diego bassist Bruce Grafrath. Subsequently, I collaborated with Bronx-born Swiss resident Edmund J. Wood on a series of experimental open improvisations, featuring Edmund on fretless bass and implied-time drum loops and me on hollow-body electric guitar. Unfortunately, the world lost a great creative soul when Edmund died in March, 2002. My most recent creative cohorts are LA-based musicians Dan Krimm, electric bassist, and Steve Sykes, with whom I've worked on trio interpretations of my compositions. I also do quite a bit of solo jazz guitar performance in the LA area, mainly playing chord-melody style jazz standards, as well as some of my own pieces conducive to solo performance.
I play a Herb Ellis model Aria Pro II hollow-body electric guitar through a Polytone Mini-Brute amp.
To backtrack a bit and fill you in on some personal history, I was raised in San Diego, California, but lived in San Francisco for 18 years. I've also traveled extensively throughout Europe and Japan. I returned to my hometown in 1993, then in 2000 moved to LA. Until 1985, when I began studying the guitar, my background was in art and writing. As a child, I was exposed to a large jazz, blues, folk, opera, world and ethnomusicology recording collection belonging to my mother. I studied guitar privately with San Francisco jazz guitarists Marlena Teich and Duncan James and with the LA/San Diego jazz guitarist Art Johnson, and spent many years in independent study. I have been composing jazz works for small and large ensembles since 1993, formally studying jazz theory, composing and arranging under Rick Helzer at SDSU.
In 1979 I made my entre into music as a backup vocalist in an all-women's blues and gospel chorale for San Francisco blues pianist, singer/songwriter and recording artist Gwen Avery. I began my instrumental career as a guitarist, singer and songwriter for an experimental SF punk-rock trio, the Well Babies, with whom I played from 1985 to 1987.
In 1987 I began focussing exclusively on jazz studies, eventually getting my feet wet with various small San Francisco jazz bands. In 1992 I supported myself by playing solo jazz guitar on the streets of Paris, returning to San Diego in 1993. That year, I joined acclaimed avant-garde Canadian saxophonist Maury Coles for duo explorations and performances. At the opposite end of the jazz spectrum, I've also performed with the UCSD Big Band under Jimmie Cheatham's direction. I formed both the duo Groove Yard and the Kim Reith Trio in 1994, performing extensively with both groups throughout San Diego between 1994 and 2000.
I continue to compose music and to play in solo, duo and trio jazz contexts in the LA area.
