Chris Pitts

Chris Pitts is a Detroit-born saxophonist steeped in Post Bop and Blues, who has called Manhattan, San Francisco, Paris, and now the Boston area home. Over his career, he's performed at major jazz festivals and clubs across North America and Europe, sharing stages with jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Kenny Garrett, and Regina Carter, and opening for Ornette Coleman and Art Blakey.

He's also performed and recorded with a wide range of top entertainers, including Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, The Temptations, and even President Bill Clinton, and has played over 1,000 private and corporate events.
 

He founded the 18-piece San Francisco-based Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, which held a long-running weekly residency at Jazz at Pearl's in North Beach, and later launched CJO East after relocating to the Boston area.

He produces several concert series, including the Newton Piano Summit and the Linda Plaut Newton Festival of the Arts, and has served as co-chair of the Newton Cultural Council. His work has earned grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Michigan Council for the Arts, among others.
 

As an educator, Chris has taught at the Detroit Jazz Center and Metro Detroit Public Schools, and has filled in at Rivers and Harvey Feinstein music schools in the Boston area. He trained at Berklee College of Music, studying privately with Bill Pierce, and later studied with George Coleman in New York City.