RITA is one of New York City's most exciting bands, consistently delivering electrifying live performances filled with spontaneity and soul. Lead by songwriter, keyboardist, and singer Brendan Skidmore along with accomplished jazz trumpeter Bruce Harris the band features an ever expanding ensemble of the city's brightest talent. Whether performing Skidmore's original songs or works by luminaries like Curtis Mayfield, Prince, and Michael Jackson, RITA blends the accessibility and fun of soulful popular music with the intense thrill of improvisation.
Lizzie Benzik 2021
Brendan Skidmore
Brendan Skidmore is a singer, songwriter, and pianist born in San Francisco
Bruce Harris
Bruce Harris is a New York born and raised trumpet player, who’s debut album as a bandleader is aptly titled Beginnings (Posi-Tone, 2017). The album features Harris in the frontline with a rotating cast of top-notch saxophonist, including Jerry Weldon, Andy Farber, Grant Stewart, Frank Basile, and Dmitry Baevsky. The steady rhythm section throughout the album consists of his working band — pianist Michael Weiss, bassist Clovis Nicolas, and drummer Pete Van Nostrand. With an amazing combination of talents, some brilliant performances, and an evocative program of music, Beginnings successfully proclaims Harris as an important and emerging voice in jazz.
Harris’ affinity with music began as a child listening to his grandfather play the alto sax in his family’s Bronx apartment. Mentored at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College by Jon Faddis, Harris received his Master’s degree in Jazz Performance in 2009 and went immediately on to perform with jazz luminaries Barry Harris, Frank Wess, The Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars, Winard Harper, T.S. Monk, Myron Walden, Kendrick Oliver's New Life Jazz Orchestra, Jimmy Cobb, the Artie Shaw Orchestra and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
In 2013, Wynton Marsalis selected Harris for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “After Midnight,” and Harris has since been one of the young cornerstones at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, Doha, Qatar and Shanghai. He has toured with countless major acts, and has been a long time fixture in The Count Basie Orchestra, one of the most classic and important jazz big bands today. He can be seen regularly performing with his quintet, and big band in the hottest clubs all over the world.
Chelsea Baratz
Chelsea Baratz is a modern saxophonist, vocalist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and rising star in the New York jazz scene. A native of Pittsburgh, she moved to New York City in 2006 to join a vanguard of genre-defying contemporary jazz artists and musical collaborators after spending her formative teen years steeped in hard bop, blues, and soul music under the tutelage of Roger Humphries and Sean Jones. She graduated from the School for Jazz and Contemporary Music at the New School in 2009 after releasing her debut album In Faith, working with Orrin Evans, Captain Black Big Band, and Nicholas Payton Big Band while completing her studies.
In 2009, Baratz joined forces with Grammy award-winning trumpeter Maurice “Mobetta” Brown and critically acclaimed harpist Brandee Younger as a bandmate and collaborator. She went on to record on Brown’s album The Moodand several of Younger’s albums, including Wax and Wane, Live at the Breeding Ground, and Soul Awakening. In addition, Baratz is an in-demand session saxophonist and horn section player, working with Matt Schofield’s band and recording with Aretha Franklin, John Legend, Talib Kweli, Om’mas Keith, Murs, Locksmith, Ski Beatz, Trevor Lawrence, and many others.