Steve and Carol Gadd now live in Phoenix, Arizona.

What about Rochester?

"I'm from here. I went to East Ridge High School. I went to St. Ambrose on the corner of Empire and Culver. I went there for eight years and then I went a couple years to the Manhattan School of Music and then I transferred back to Eastman."

"We used to go to Suicide Hill and Sugar Bowl. It was some of the best sleigh riding
we ever did. At Suicide there were two hills down there. The first one was the the Sugar Bowl. And then the second one in the back, what 1 remember, that was Suicide Hill.
That one at Durand, I've been down at
night on a toboggan. Yeah. If you hit the
edge of that creek, you could get hurt.
This (Rochester) is a great area. And
it's been great with kids growing up. "

Steve's father would regularly take his son
out to hear live music, The Ridgecrest, The Pythod and Doug Dukes were among a few
of the clubs Steve first started sitting in. Once in college there were many clubs Steve would be working at such as The Depot with Tony Levin and Gap Mangione.

He would also be found playing shows and other assorted jazz gigs with Gerry Niewood, Sal Sparraza and Chuck Mangione, clubs
like The Midnighter and eventually The Shakespere. After moving to New York he would return home to play at Jeff Springut's Red Creek, first with L'image and then his own Gadd Gang in the 80's.

One memorable weekend was back December 27th & 28th 1980, for Chuck Mangione's Italian Earthquake Relief Concert at was then The Rochester Plaza hotel. That was our introduction to Steve's own group and great playing the whole evening with an all star cast, eventually released as Chuck's Tarantella album. The following evening had a jam session at Don Potter's music room featuring Lew Soloff, Barry Kiener, Bill Staebell and many others, bootleg tapes do exist.

If need be there are world class studios a few miles away such as The Studio At Linden Oaks, where James Taylor's October Road was recorded. He can also fly to any assignment at moments notice, which
has occured. One nice treat is hearing Steve sit in at a intimate club with old friends like Joe Romano, special nights at Lloyds and Max of Eastman Place come to mind. Rochester has always had some great
musicians and also artists living here,
he's right at home being here.

A couple of years ago, James Taylor was playing with
the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, "and he had
some songs he just wanted to put some feels with,
some grooves."

Gadd suggested The Studios at Linden Oaks in East Rochester. Some of those tracks ended up on the 2002 album October Road, which Taylor recorded at The Studios. Among the many amenities of the studio, Gadd says, East Rochester offers "not a lot of distractions." That, Gadd concedes, might be one reason he's living
in Pittsford with his wife, Carol, and their two boys,
ages 19 and 15; he also has two daughters
from a first marriage.

When back visiting in Rochester, Steve still enjoys Rochester restaurants like Don's Original, 2 vine,
PF Changs, Erie Grill, and Nick Tahoes.