Tuck and Patti in Concert

A staple on smooth jazz formats for nearly three decades, the unique vocal / guitar jazz duo Tuck and Patti has cast its passionate musical spell worldwide, capturing the hearts of lovers, the respect of jazz buffs, and the jaw-dropping awe of guitarists. Patti performed with many rock and jazz groups during the historic San Francisco sixties musical scene, and saw countless key performances by rock, blues, gospel and jazz greats of the day. "The Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, Carousel Ballroom, Keystone Korner and Winterland were like home to me," Patti says. "Bill Graham always looked out for me. Jimi Hendrix called me 'Foxy Lady' on my birthday one year. I jammed with hundreds of musicians!" The sixties scene brought Tuck to the West Coast, and in 1970, he enrolled as a music major at Stanford University. He spent four years with the GAP Band, his "graduate degree in soul music." Meanwhile Tuck doggedly continued studying recordings of guitarists of every style, developing a knack for playing the guitar as several instruments at once. "I learned how to vary the volume and tone of each part independently of the others," Tuck explains, "not knowing that this would become an essential ingredient of the fingerstyle guitar I would take up when Patti and I got together." For Tuck and Patti, from then on, there has not been a break. Friendship and collaboration grew to love, and the two were married in 1981. Their recording career took off when Windham Hill Jazz signed them for 1988's groundbreaking Tears of Joy. This and several other Windham Hill albums put them on the map, and they've been solidifying their career, their musical conversation, their technique, and their love together ever since....more