ChrisStefanetti.com • Biography

Chris Stefanetti • Biography

Stefanetti's performance work has taken him to clubs, festivals and TV appearances throughout the World. He is found comfortable in virtually every style of music from the Cajun-Zydeco music of Queen Ida to the Neo Soul Band Dreamed and Dressed to the power blues rock of The Dave Fields BandH.

Introduced to the electric bass at age ten, Chris was primarily self taught from elementary school through early high school. At sixteen and seventeen Stefanetti studied briefily with local San Francisco bassists and was mentored by then Richie Cole drummer, Scott "Stuffy" Morris. Beginning with piano at age five, cello at age eight the young musician then graduated to double bass at nine then onto electric bass. Shortly after, Stefanetti began practicing and performing with a combo in elementary school and went on to perform with many jazz and rock bands in his early school years including a Jazz Fusion group they called "New Legend" at age fourteen with friend, Bay Area session guitarist Stef Burns of "Shelia E" and "Huey Lewis and the News" fame.

Chosen at sixteen as second chair to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival with the All Stars Big Band and then as California Allstate Jazz Bassist in 1980, the young bassist appeared with the California All-State Big Band lead by the great jazz trumpeter and arranger Bill Berry. Also, while still in high school, Stefanetti was asked to play numerous gigs with "Full Faith and Credit Big Band" featuring some of the S.F. Bay Area's finest jazz musicians. After high school, he freelanced in the Bay Area club and casual scene for about a year and at nineteen(1981) moved to Boston to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music with Bruce Gertz and Jeff Berlin. It was there at Berklee where Chris regularly played sessions with great musicians like Neils Lan Doky, Greg Osby, Doug Web, Gene Jackson, Danny Walsh and Dave Kikoski. From there Stefanetti embarked on an active performance career as a sought after San Francisco Bay Area Bassist playing and recording with some of the most established musicians and artist there including Rodney Franklin, Queen Ida, Napata Mero, Chris Cammozi, Jules Brousard, Walter Afanasieff, Alex Merzyn, The Magpies and more.

Between the years of 1998 and 2004 Chris Stefanetti took a break from a fairly busy schedule freelancing in the Bay Area music scene and pursued his interest in computer programming and engineering which became full time work. He worked as a freelance network engineer and UNIX administrator which proved to be both interesting and lucrative for the musician. During that time he composed a fair amount of jazz and pop music and taught himself drums and guitar.

In 2004, Stefanetti moved to Los Angeles again playing bass and composing. After only 6 months in LA he performed on a CD with Vinnie Colaiuta, Scott Henderson and Kirk Covington, had a full schedule of corporate, club and recording dates, performed regulary at The Baked Potato, Catalina Bar and La Ve Lee clubs doing performances with Haakon Graf Trio, Walfredo Reyes Jr's Wally World Band, Amalgatron featuring John Ziegler and Glen Sobel, Michael Lington, Sandro Albert, Joey Heredia Band and more.