We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dave Ricketts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dave below.

Dave, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

Like many young people, when I was in high school, I had a band and I was mainly self-taught. I was also deeply in love with the Beatles, I’d been a fan since I was ten and then poor John Lennon was murdered when I was twelve so music and rock and roll became very important to me. When I graduated high school I had no money to go to college and so it was off to find a job. I did many things trying to find my niche, I was a bike messenger in Baltimore where I grew up and lived, I mowed greens at a golf course, I made pizzas at an Italian deli. A friend of mine from high school was working at a hotel downtown and captivated by his stories of big tips, I decided I was going to be brave enough to try and get a job at a hotel. I worked at a few different hotels in fact and at my third I was asked to be a valet. After two weeks or so my boss came to me and asked me if I would be a limo driver for the hotel. I was 19 years old. Of course, I jumped at the chance and I had no idea, but the hotel had the contract with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra that the star of the Orchestra each month would stay at this hotel where I worked. This really shaped my life.

Within three days, I was driving Dizzie Gillespie to the inner harbor to meet a friend! A week later George Benson, and that was just the beginning. I drove Sarah Vaughan, Johnny Mathis, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and CAB CALLOWAY. I drove so many famous musicians, actors and comedians around for those four years. I also learned about cities, the money I was making would allow me to go out on the town in Baltimore and hear live music. Many of the people I drove would give me tickets to see them if I had a night off that coincided with their shows. I started to drift to D.C and NYC, going to museums, clubs and concert halls. Well, so many stories I could tell about those days!
There was something else about that job, it taught you how to talk to people if you hadn’t learned that already. I would be all alone in a car with someone, sometimes they were famous musicians sometimes they were just regular guests of the hotel. You really only had a small window of time to deduce if you were to talk with them or leave them alone. Most of the time it was best to just leave them alone but sometimes it wasn’t. Also I’d start noticing that if you knew how to read their body language and treat them how they wanted you made much more in tips.

This job really taught me people skills as well as giving me a tremendous insight of the lifestyles of iconic American musicians! Many times I’ve realized some of my success has come from this by chance experience on the job.

Dave, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

What I am most known for is being Dave Ricketts of Gaucho, which is a gypsy jazz band based in San Francisco California. The band started in 2001 and although gypsy Jazz is very popular now, Gaucho is definitely in the first 20 gypsy jazz bands ever started in the states, and we are still going strong! Some of my pieces that I recorded with Gaucho are in a new film “Stationed at Home” premiering at the Glasgow Film Festival in late February/early March.

The thing that made me popular in San Francisco was holding down a gig at a club called “Amnesia” in the mission. When I first got the gig there in San Francisco’s mission District, it was a rough neighborhood that kind of no one went to if you had enough money to go to North Beach or the marina or downtown. It was mainly full of low income, workers and students, and delicious taquerias… Amnesia is no longer around. Sadlymit closed just before lockdown, but across the 18 years, we played there from 2002 to 2020, that neighborhood became very posh and gentrified with the development of the tech industry in San Francisco.
I started Gaucho with some sweet guys that I had met other bands and we were only a trio, but it grew to be a sextet at Amnesia and the success of the band made us very popular even nationally! We were mentioned in the lonely planet, travel, guide, and the place packed every Wednesday for us for 18 years. We’ve been voted best jazz band in San Francisco in 2009 and best band in San Francisco in 2015. The San Francisco chronicle interviewed me and said some nice things about my playing, “To see Ricketts play guitar is to see a master at work…”
We were also very different from a regular gypsy jazz band because of the great Bay Area musicians I attracted. Ralph Carney from Tom Waits band on saxophone, Rob Reich on accordion, Leon Oakley on cornet and we’ve even had a drummer in the band, always which most gypsy jazz bands, never do. Where I had been solely interested in Django Reinhardt when I started the band, working with these musicians taught me that Django was inspired by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller this changed our sound even more. This “ah ha!” moment for me as I came to understand it, and after five years or so I became able to start writing songs of my own that we could perform, we really had developed a product at this point. I’m happy to report that the band is still up and running. I’m happy to say and recording new music and we still play at least three if not, seven gigs a week now for 24 years! Oh, also we have one of our recordings in the Keanu Reeves/Winona Ryder movie “Destination Wedding” as well as a few Indie films, such as “Trattoria” 2010 and most recently the wonderful film by Daniel Mascari called”Stationed at Home” that I mentioned earlier.

Something else I’m known for is writing and performing my own country songs for about a decade now. I have a record out. I did at home during lockdown called “Daddy’s High Again” as well as three singles, “Geronimo” 2023, “Portland was Our Paris” spring 2024 and I covered the old Charles Brown standard “Please Come Home for Christmas” which came out just around thanksgiving a couple months ago. I’m currently working on a full length record at home again with eleven new originals.
I perform out twice a week in San Francisco with this material in between Gaucho gigs.

A missing part of my story till now is that when I left my job as a limo driver at the age of 23 in Baltimore, I went to college at Univeristy of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico and studied with a famous classical guitar professor and performer there at the university by the name of Michael Chapdelaine, finishing up in 1997. Michael was a famous if not infamous student of Andrés Segovia’s. In fact, if you search both their names on YouTube, you’re in for a treat! I studied with Michael when I was in my 20s and by 30 I had discovered Django Reinhardt and largely left the world of classical guitar behind me. It’s kind of crazy to think about as I say it because you had to be talented and a super hard worker to study with Michael Chapdelaine at all and I think that I just walked away from it after five years to pursue a different direction, it hits me more deeply now that I’ve been doing it for a quarter of a century. I do think that that stuff I learned with him all those years ago stayed down deep inside me, people will tell me that they can tell I studied classically. Also something I didn’t think about till recently is that while Michael was an award-winning classical guitarist, he also was a crossover artist. He transcribed a lot of pop tunes for classical guitar and why a lot of people do that, Michael is arguably the first true virtuous so to have started doing that in the 1990s. I do think he had a big effect on me and I still study classical guitar every week these days in honor of having worked with him. He passed away of a heart attack at the age of 67 around Thanksgiving of 2023 and in November 2024 I played his memorial among some other classical guitar players. We were always good friends after I finished school and I even had one of my longest phone calls with him maybe just ten days before he passed away. It was interesting for me to think about how different I sounded from the classical guitar players, but how much I knew and loved the style in which they performed.
I have a very diverse style. Sometimes I joke and say that I know most of the songs from George Gershwin’s Lady Be Good to Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Is there a particular goal or mission driving my creative path?
This is a weird path to walk because it is really hinged together on what inspires you. I listen to a lot of music from all genres. I like what Louis Armstrong says when someone asks him what style of music he plays. “ man, I don’t have time for style. There’s just two things and music, good and bad. If it’s good, you don’t worry about it. You’re just go and enjoy it…”

I read a lot of books, This really shapes the way I think. I love historical non-fiction like Empire of the Summer Moon and Season of the Witch and am currently reading a fascinating book entitled The Madams of San Francisco. Ultimately the “goal” or “mission” for me is to keep evolving and creating from a place of inspiration.

I love autobiographies and some of my favorites are:
My Autobiography-Charlie Chaplin
Lady Sings the Blues-Billie Holiday
Malcolm X Autobiography
My Life as a Slave-Frederick Douglas
Be My Baby-Ronnie Spector
My Life in New Orleans-Louis Armstrong

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I studied classical guitar in New Mexico with Michael Chapdelaine, the things that were stressed the most were memorizing pieces and being able to sight read. While these things were great for classical guitar they almost are counter productive for blues, jazz, country and rock and roll. These styles are more improvisitory and reactionary.

There’s a great quote from Louis Armstrong, someone asks him if he knows how to read music and he replies,”not enough to hurt my playing…”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Gauchojazz.com
• Instagram: @daverickettsmusic.com
• Facebook: @davericketts
• Twitter: Nope
• Youtube: @daverickettsmusic
• Yelp: Nope
• Soundcloud: Gaucho
• Other: I focus on two styles of music. Primarily Gaucho, but also my country blues music. So something you’ll find under Gaucho but my country music originals you’ll find under Dave Ricketts music.

Image Credits

Felix Uribe
Felixuribe.com