Into Tonal Beauty: Escaping Chord Grips

Andy Fite is a jazz guitarist, singer, and songwriter currently living in Stockholm, Sweden, having lived and worked in New York City for many years. As a guitarist it's fair to say he sounds like no one else, joyous and spontaneous, with influences ranging from Charlie Parker and Lennie Tristano to Bach, Brahms and Chopin. (And the rhythm guitarists of the 1930s!) As a singer he's been compared to Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé, with a warm sound and a natural phrasing coming from his strong focus on the words, and the thoughts and the feeling they communicate. He's written about 650 songs, extending the tradition of the "Great American Songbook" into the contemporary era, with what is often a comedic approach to the agonies of life and love, and performs across northern Europe under the title ”Jazz Comic Philosopher”. He has also recorded a lot. 44 albums are currently available for download or streaming at iTunes, Spotify, CD Baby, Amazon and other sites. These include pure jazz recordings in duo, trio and quartet, and solo; multi-tracked jazz transformations on Bach and other classic composers, compositions for solo guitar, many albums of original songs, and several albums in a new genre of his own which he calls the Talking Kaleidoscope. Andy has played with some of the all-time greats, including Red Mitchell, Kenny Clarke, Billy Eckstine, Kazzrie Jaxen (formerly Liz Gorrill) Connie Crothers, Bob Casanova, Sheila Jordan, Jan Allan, and many others. He is a teacher too. He works in his own private studio and at Sollentuna Jazz Workshop in Stockholm, and has guest-lectured at the Royal Academy of Music and several other schools in Sweden, and in Finland, Norway, Denmark and Germany, and also in New York City. He has also worked a bit on the comedy stages in Stockholm and elsewhere, and for a while there even had a spot on a Swedish children’s television show.