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Jimmy Pagano and Richard Saslow have been working together off and on for almost thirty years. They first met each other in Berkeley, California in the early '70's, playing acoustic music in a variety of settings.
Jimmy's strength had been elaborate folk style fingerpicking with sophisticated contrapuntal lines, while Richard's had been blues and soul jazz, and the combination of the two made for a unique symbiotic relationship.
Richard got further into music as a sideman playing electric guitar in blues, soul, and rock revival bands, primarily in the San Francisco Bay area. He also performed and composed the music for two instruction books published by Green Note Music, "The Art of Slide Guitar" in 1972, and "The Art of Ragtime Guitar" in 1974.
Jimmy moved to Chicago to pursue his medical studies, while playing in blues bands at night.
In the early '80's, they both found themselves in Los Angeles. Richard was working as a sideman in clubs and music publisher demo studios, while studying film scoring with Don B. Ray at UCLA Extension. Jimmy was playing in bands, writing tunes and getting his medical career in full swing. They started an association with film producer and director Scott Dittrich of Malibu, and subsequently wrote, performed and produced much of the music for two documentaries about surfing, "Tales of the Seven Seas" in 1981, and "Adventures in paradise" in 1982.
Richard eventually moved back to the Bay Area, and started a second career in software engineering, which he still actively pursues.
Jimmy remained in LA, and in addition to his career as a physician specializing in Emergency Medicine, he has a business which provides emergency room physician staffing to two LA hospitals.
Despite the geographical distance, they re-connected in the '90's, collaborating on several pieces which eventually became the basis for the "PS1" compact disk. They recorded the CD the summer of 2001, and released it that winter. While no sales records have been broken, the response has been tremendously enthusiastic.
Their musical styles continue to evolve, and they're currently working on material for a new CD. They hope to get back into the studio by the end of this year...