Dean Grech

Dean Grech always knew he wanted to make music. At the age of seven, he went to a wedding & ended up sitting at the edge of the stage all night & watching the band. Immediately after, he began hounding his parents for a guitar. With an old broken-down piano in the garage, they of course, encouraged him to take up piano. After a year of him refusing to touch the piano & more persistent hounding, he finally got his guitar. Dean began playing at age 8. At that point, he locked himself in his room and a lifetime of dedication began. After developing his skills for a few years, he started playing professionally with local rock bands, always being the youngest in the band. By age 11, he had his first paying gig. As his skills evolved, his uncle encouraged him to learn classical guitar, which he developed a great love for. By the time Dean was 14, he was fortunate enough to be selected to study classical guitar with world-renowned Decca recording artist Rey Delatorre, who later became a personal and musical inspiration to him. Delatorre had hopes that Dean would one day be a concert classical guitarist. However, this dream was sideswiped by a family friend, Jim Polletti, who happened to drop off a stack of seemingly innocent jazz records. In that stack were “Kaleidoscope” by Johnny Smith & “Boss Guitar” by Wes Montgomery. The hook was embedded. The sounds of these two guitar players haunted him relentlessly from that point on. Within the next few years, Dean began learning to play jazz and at 19 went on to study at Berklee School of Music in Boston, which led him to a career in music. He toured & played with various jazz and pop artists around the world. He also played on television & movie soundtracks and has had success as a songwriter for various American & European artists. Like most successful L.A. musicians, he played at Disney & performed on their world tours for seven years. He currently plays in the L.A. area solo and also with many different configurations of musical groups. Today his music can be found anywhere from TV, movie sound tracks to jazz radio. “We Got Lost” the title track of his 2014 CD was one of the songs chosen for the music along with Dean as a guest artist appearing on the PBS special with – John Lowson (Grammy Award winning engineer) “ How We make Music For CD’s And Downloads”. The song “Two Strong Arms” (Dean Grech/Reggie Ashley), was featured in Dustin Lance Black’s 2011 motion picture release “ Virginia”, starring Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly. In December 2010, Dean’s Christmas song, “What do you want for Christmas” (Grech/Ashley), rose to #1 most added song on Smooth Jazz Radio (Smooth Jazz.com), beating out Quincy Jones, Spencer Day, and Dave Koz. As a Lace product endorser, Dean can be found in the Lace Music guitar pickup demonstration videos. His compositions have been featured on many radio, internet and DMX stations. His first single, "Funky Talk" (from the album “Look Out”), was the song of choice for the Japanese McDonald’s Healthy Choice campaign. “Funky Talk” charted #1 on Billboard’s BDS Radio Chart. It was also the most added song on the DMX Smooth Jazz List and Groove Jazz Charts. Dean has performed on stages all over the world, including Finland, Malta, Canada and Costa Rica. Most recently, Dean performed at the KSBR Jazz Fest/Birthday Bash, as a solo artist and also with Brian Bromberg, Mindi Abair, and Greg Adams. His debut album, “Look Out”, was a featured CD on the JazzNet247 Radio Show, “Make It Saxy”. In October 2009, “I Don’t Believe” was a featured track on Café Jazz Radio, with Ted Hasiuk, as the “best track for 90 days”. In December 2009, Dean was the featured artist of the month for Lace Guitar Pickups, Smooth Jazz Beach Radio, and WUMR Memphis’ top 10 weekly countdown. Stay tuned for Dean’s new recording, “We got lost” which is scheduled for release in March of 2014. This album features a top notch crew of players featuring Greg Vail on sax, Hans Zermuehlen on keyboards, and John Ferraro on drums. On the new disc, Grech melds his cool jazz styling’s with slippery grooves, an R&B sensibility, and a compelling vocal presentation. Saturated with adventures musical textures, Dean Grech’s out of the box collection of tunes is well worth the wait.