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Welcome to my "Bio". It's rather long, but, I think, rather interesting, if not a tad bit gratuitous. Seriously, I hope you enjoy it, but I have included tags for you to jump back to the top, just in case you find that you'd like to look at the other pages first and then come back here to read it in its entirety, later. I was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on May 12, 1953. My father, Jimmy Namaro, was a studio musician for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) Radio. I started piano lessons at age 7, with a retired piano teacher who lived next door. She wasn't a great piano teacher, but to be fair, I wasn't a great student.

At the time, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. I wanted to be the next Bob Kane. I read all sorts of comic books like, "Batman and Robin", "Superman", "The Fantastic Four", and many others. Unfortunately, I wasn't doing very well in school, so my mother threw out all of my comic books. She denounced them as garbage that was taking me away from my homework, and insisting that I read more "elevated" material.(top)

By the late 1960's, I got caught up in the music, and more pointed, drumming craze. But I wasn't attracted to the usual rock drummers that were associated with the pop groups of that period. In fact, the only rock drummer that I listened to and enjoyed was Mitch Mitchell, who played with guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Frankly, Mitch was kind of jazz oriented in his playing, and I really loved jazz drumming.

Since my father was a professional musician, he and his musician friends, consequently, exposed the whole family to jazz, Latin, and classical music. This influenced me greatly. Not only that, but when I started to really get into jazz music, my father would take me to jazz clubs in the Toronto area. They would feature great international acts like Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Horace Silver, Elvin Jones, Mongo Santamaria, and many more!(top)

I feel that the exposure to that great array of music was slowly forming my eclectic musical tastes. It also contributed to my attraction for playing "hybrid" and mixed meter rhythms.

I studied drums, marimba and vibes with various teachers in Toronto, and at the age of 16 I became a professional musician, myself.(top)

Also around that time, I decided to start studying piano and music theory, again. This time I found an excellent piano teacher, who was also a professional musician in the Toronto area. I became fascinated with piano, bass and drums or what is better know to musicians and music lovers as the "rhythm section".

So, at age 19, I took up bass. I bought a cheap string bass, and took some lessons, but living and surviving on my own was hard, so I ended up selling it. It was then the 1970's and everyone, including the jazz musicians were playing electric bass. So, since an electric bass was more affordable than a string bass, it became my next instrument. I got an electric bass and amp, and became a professional bassist.(top)

I made my living playing drums and electric bass for awhile, but I felt my career was going nowhere in Toronto. I decided it was time to try a different environment. I went to Europe first, because of the respect jazz musicians were given there, at the time. I tried Copenhagen, Denmark. I had heard that they had a pretty good jazz scene there. What I didn't know, was that they were having a major recession, and because of limited work, I was discouraged, especially as a foreigner, to look for work. To make matters worse, I didn't speak Danish, and I was frightened of the consequences of poverty in an unfamiliar land, and my inexperience with life.

So, it was back to Toronto to try to get work. I didn't have much success and I left for California a couple of years later. That was in the spring of 1976. (I also went back to Toronto in 1983 for 4 months, but that's another story.) I basically spent the years 1976-1986 in the Los Angeles/San Diego area, playing mostly drums, some bass, and studying drums with a fine musician and composer by the name of Richard P. Wilson.(top)

Richard had been a child prodigy who played violin and classical piano. He had also had the desire to play drums. So, he started studying with the famous snare drum teacher, Murray Spivak. As time went by, Richard proved to be a fine drummer, and also possessed a gift for composition. He studied privately with the famous 20th century classical composer, Arnold Schoenberg.

In addition to helping me with my drum technique, Richard showed me several of his scores and played me recordings of some of his concerts, featuring his music. I didn't realize it at the time, but I suspect that he influenced my secret desire to compose.(top)

I got married in late 1986, and was looking for all sorts of employment. My music work had dropped off, so I was doing busboy jobs in restaurants and some "Manpower" jobs. (Lifting crates, schlepping desks and office furniture, etc.) Then someone mentioned to me that a local San Diego theatre was looking for actors to audition for a production. I had taken drama in high school and loved it. So, I went down to the theatre and auditioned. The other, more experienced, actor I read with thought I was talented, and encouraged me to audition and pursue acting. (This was easy to do, because as I was reading scenes with him, I remembered how much fun acting was in school!)(top)

Around that time my wife, Angela, and I decided to move to Seattle, Washington. We were there for about four and a half years and for most of that time I pursued an acting career. Later, when we moved back to Southern California (first to Van Nuys and then back to San Diego) I pursued acting there, too.

As time went by, I found that I wasn't cast in as many roles as I would have liked, so I found myself drifting back to music. Solo piano gigs were gaining some popularity, so I started honing my piano skills, yet again and found some work.(top)

Angela found a job at the University of California, San Diego, but after awhile we got tired of Southern California. Since we had always had a desire to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, we moved again (just call me "gypsy-feet" Namaro)! She was able to transfer to U.C. Berkeley, and we moved there in 1995, and bought a house in 1997.

Angela was frustrated with not performing (in addition to her many talents, she is also a fine singer) so she wanted get a trio together. I offered to be her pianist/arranger, and I then started writing arrangements and reharmonizing songs for her. We did mostly jazz standards. This is where I really believe the writing bug bit me! You see, the ultimate goal of reharmonizing a tune is to make it sound as much like your tune, as the original songwriter's. Reharmonization, is a form of composition, and therefore, is the first step towards writing your own tunes. We rehearsed; I practiced piano and wrote. We then did a demo tape, of which I'm still proud.(top)

Then I took some music theory and harmony classes, and piano classes. After all of that, in the summer of 1998, I started to write the music for my CD, "Abstractionisms" (which I originally called, "Wells", but that's another long story, and you can click on Abstractionisms - The Project for that one).