Local Instrumentalist 'Jazzed Up' For Saturday Performances

Tim Riddle may have grown up on the Jersey Shore, the land of Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, but jazz is what ultimately sunk its hooks into this Wesley Chapel-based guitarist.

“When I was younger, I had a teacher who said if you want to be the best, you have to play jazz,” he said. “I was still interested in rock ‘n’ roll but I had that (jazz) foundation. I knew that was the real stuff.”

Riddle, a music teacher at in Land O’ Lakes and former corrections officer in Pasco County, will bring his electric jazz guitar stylings to two New Tampa locations tomorrow (Saturday, Nov. 26). Accompanied by a second guitarist, Riddle will perform free for customers from 3-5 p.m. at , a paint-your-own-pottery studio, and from 8-11 p.m. at .

A recipient of Creative Loafing’s “Best of the Bay Award" for instrumentalist musician, the 37-year-old puts his unique spin on old jazz standards. And his original tunes have been called “fluid, infectious and playful” by the St. Petersburg Times.

Riddle has three independent CD releases under his belt. A fourth, to be titled “Remember When,” will be recorded in February. For the disc, Riddle will be heading into Jankland Recordings in Central Jersey to work with Steve Jankowski, a sound engineer and trump player currently playing with Blood, Sweat and Tears.  

Riddle’s first CD (“One Night in Red Bank”) was all standards, the second (“That Christmas Feeling”) was full of holiday tunes and the third (“Luna Loca”) contained just two originals. Now with “Remember When,” Riddle will be recording mostly originals – and going all in to land a record deal and propel his career to the next level.

“This new recording is going to be the biggest one with the best possible players,” he said. “This is the one that’s going to be shopped around to the record labels.”

Given Riddle’s now-or-never approach with this forthcoming release, it’s hard to believe that he almost gave up on the music dream. In his early 20s, Riddle hooked up with an independent music label in New Jersey that had a “for the musicians, of the musicians and by the musicians” approach, he said. But after recording a collection of instrumental rock songs, financial disaster struck.

“When it was time for my CD, they were dead in the water,” he said, adding the experience left him embittered about the whole professional musician idea. “I was kind of done with it. I got burnt out. … I had a music note on my right shoulder removed because it was too painful to think about life without music.”

But Riddle was unable to let music go away forever, obviously. And he continues to strive to be a better player. Riddle currently studies jazz with LaRue Nickelson, a professor at University of South Florida.

Riddle said when he performs, he tries to give audience members a gift of notes and melodies they won't soon forget.

“I just want them to enjoy the music,” he said. “It’s all about the music.”

 

Performance Information

Riddle will perform free for customers from 3-5 p.m. Saturday at You Do the Dishes, 15357 Amberly Drive, and then from 8-11 p.m. at Toast Fine Wine & Cigar Bar, 14921 Bruce B. Downs Blvd.

For more information, visit www.timriddleguitar.com on the web.