first picked up one of his father's guitars at around 4 years old, but it wasn't until Pete reached the age of 13 that he cut his teeth on gypsy style swing. His musical apprenticeship was playing as a guitar duo with his father, sailing and caravanned all over France busking cafés, bars and restaurants as they went and learning from the gypsies themselves. Pete is also a classical guitar player, and has formed and played with various rock bands ever since his early teens when he also co-authored material for a Jazz-funk band. During this time he has had many a stint with the Jazz Foundation in Cornwall and other Cornish Trad. jazz Bands. He was also a co-founder of Gypsy jazz band Manouche.
Later, after moving to Hampshire due to work commitments, Pete formed Jazz Gitanes in 1996. After several successful years and playing some prestigious jazz clubs like the Concorde Club in Eastleigh (as support to Georgie Fame, Bucky Pizzarelli, Alan Barnes and Stacey Kent), in its original form, a guitar duo, Jazz Gitanes is much more fluid both in its membership and outlook.
studied music at Berklee, USA where he specialised in film scoring, jazz piano and folk accordion.
A multi-instrumentalist (and awful singer), he has been writing
music for film and television full time since 2000. His credits comprise numerous films, documentaries, docu-dramas,reality TV series and cinematic shorts including the BAFTA nominated "Nits" in 2004 and the multi-award winning US feature "In Memory of My Father" in 2005.
As a musician he has toured extensively across Europe and beyond nd has performed for the British Royal Family on more than one occasion as well as for Gordon Brown and The Cheeky Girls (on seperate occasions). Dan works from his own fully equipped studio in bohemian South-East London where he cowers beneath huge piles of exotic accordions and vintage synthesizers. He is a keen footballer, but is learning that other things in life, apart from football, can be interesting too. Although rarely more so than football itself.
(the bassist formerly known as '5') was (to borrow from Jaco Pastorius) formally self taught. In a bizarrely eccentric career (involving everything from The Royal Opera House to Helen Shapiro) he has touched on almost every genre whilst successfully avoiding being permanently identified with any of them.
Despite having worked as a sideman for a long list of jazz names he has always had the wrong haircut to be taken seriously but has always been big in Peru. He delights in such a random existence and the challenge implicit in the notion that the art of the virtuoso cannot flourish without the craft of the accompanist. Having given up the law for Rock and Roll he has also had other parallel universe careers such as "making antiques" [sic] and he spent several years in womenswear! "Never mind the humble accompanist bit, at heart I'm just a show off!". Nevertheless can sometimes be persuaded to shut up and just play rhythm guitar when required.