It was probably early 1970 when I heard Lew Soloff’s trumpet solo on Blood, Sweat, & Tears’ Spinning Wheel that I decided I wanted to play jazz. Lew’s proficiency as a jazz and pop player was overlooked by many but who could argue that he could compete with the likes of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan at the time. My jazz experience came via the Firestone High School Stage Band where we played stock arrangements of Basie, Ellington, Quincy Jones, and more. Somehow that swing feeling just entered my stream of consciousness and never found its way out.

Then came college but not the study of music. During those years not much happened for me musically except playing electric bass in a few rock cover bands. However, I did begin collecting jazz vinyl of people like Miles Davis, Stan Getz, and others. It was 1975 that I reconnected with a high school friend, David Slusser, a multi-reed player who was exploring avant garde jazz. Not knowing what this was I began playing in his ensemble and found the free-jazz genre to be quite intimidating. Though the instantaneous exploration of it was intriguing, most of the time it was like acrobatics without a net. Dave invited me to follow him to California after college to continue pursuit of the avant garde genre where, in the Bay Area, there was a healthy throng of listeners with a big appetite for this creative openness.

That lasted until 1980 when I auditioned for the UC Berkeley Symphony. Not having played organized music since high school I felt way out of my comfort zone. Conductor Michael Senturia had chosen Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring which called for five trumpets. I was chair four. The piece is extremely difficult but I found it challenging and was all in. It was the experience of a lifetime. I completed a year with the orchestra but that was enough.

There was a dry spell where not much happened musically until the mid-90’s. I began playing with some of the big bands in the Bay Area. They were called “rehearsal bands” because they never performed except maybe once a year. A few long-time band leaders around the Bay had great libraries of classic big band swing and jazz. It was great for improving my reading chops which no longer resembled the “sight read anything flawlessly in high school” days.

The swing craze had grabbed the attention of the young Bay Area crowd and they were starving for good swing bands. The Mood Swing Orchestra, led by Mike Young, was working all the time along with Timmy Hesla’s band and others. I met a ton of good players in those groups and still maintain contact with some of them to this day.

During this period I also hooked up with some cover and tribute bands who wanted horns. I was often asked to be the music director for these groups and really enjoyed creating horn and full band arrangements of good pop and rock tunes. A couple of the notable bands were Herb and Casino Royale. Herb was a tribute to Herb Alpert and, being about ten to fifteen years older than most of the guys in the band, I already knew the material from my high school days when Whipped Cream was every guy’s favorite album cover. I didn’t need the music to play these gigs and they were a blast. We followed Herb’s arrangements but with a bit of tongue in cheek. The audience loved it. Casino Royale was more of ‘60’s go-go band with good musicianship and vintage costumes.

I also formed my own musical enterprise for private events. I had developed a data base of musicians upon whom I could call to play these corporate or wedding gigs and worked for several event planners who contracted me to provide ensembles around the Bay Area but mostly in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. How can I forget the occasion when my urinal was next to Vincent Schiavelli, the actor who played biology teacher Mr. Vargas in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, in the bathroom for a party hosted by Francis Ford Coppola.

There was a dry spell in the early 2000’s when no trumpet was played but in 2003 I was forced to pull the horn out of mothballs when my son, then age 10, needed someone to play trumpet duets with. That lead to me taking a couple jazz ensemble classes at The Jazz School in Berkeley (now the Jazz Conservatory) from guitarist Steve Erquiaga. Steve occasionally allowed students to bring in their originals. By this time, I had written a couple dozen pieces for quintet/sextet size but none of them had been played. When I brought in my composition “Iternity” (I had already conceived the “Iter” concept), Steve gave me a thumbs up and we performed it at the end-of-term recital.

That was the beginning of my friendship with Steve. Following the classes at the JS, I felt compelled to form a group to play and record several of my compositions. Having become a member of the planning committee for Oakland’s Montclair Wine and Jazz Festival, I found the perfect opportunity to construct my ensemble and perform my works. Saxophonist Brian McVicker was instrumental in helping me find the right players to fill the chairs and Steve Erquiaga agreed to play the guitar part. Following the festival, I pursued my first recording as a leader and went into the studio in December, 2005 which lead to the release of “Iternity” by Peter Anastos & Iter. I chose Iter from having worked too many crosswords where the answer to the “Roman road” clue kept appearing. To me, jazz is like a trip down a road except you don’t always know where it will lead. The other members of the band included Brian/sax, Steve/guitar, Andy Dillard/drums, Nelson Braxton/bass, and Jason Martineau/piano.

The Iter ensemble looked the same in its early years but soon after the release of Iternity pianist Frank Martin became a member of the group. Frank’s incredible playing raised the bar for everyone. I was hanging on by my finger nails. Bassist Jon Herrera, an associate of Brian and Andy’s, also joined the group. I had surrounded myself with terrific talent who, on one hand embraced my compositions and, on another provided tremendous musical insulation in which I could develop as a soloist.

Then in about 2009, I discovered that Steve Erquiaga owned a bouzouki – that Greek instrument that looks like a mandolin except someone used a gourd for the body. In no time we had introduced our audience to some Greek-inspired improv that was a hit. As with many jazz ensembles, personnel changes just happen. Steve left the band for a while and I approached George Mylordos, the best bouzouki player in Northern California. George’s experience was strictly as a Greek musician, playing festivals and concerts of Greek music. However, I sensed George could apply his wealth of Greek arpeggios to improvisation and I was right.

Not only did I bring in the Greek-infused material, I formed a musical friendship with one of the Bay Area’s best known bagpipers, Lynne Miller. Before too long I was creating arrangements of traditional Scottish bagpipe tunes for the group. In 2014 I released my second cd, “Iterations + Greek & Scottish Delights” featuring George and Lynne. The band also included Frank Martin/keyboard, Jon Herrera/bass, Andy Dillard/drums, and Bryan Girard/sax.

2018 brought changes to my personal life that included retiring from my day job, remarrying, and relocating to southern Oregon. I soon found some like-minded jazz musicians and began collaborating. Covid shut down the few venues that featured jazz but in 2022 I released “Sempiternity”. I felt this was some of my best writing, especially the title track. The band included John Mazzei/keyboard, Jeff Addicott/bass, Theresa McCoy/drums, and Adam Harris/sax.

Just prior to Covid shutting down the local music scene, I resurrected some seven-piece arrangements I had written back in 2013. I chose select jazz standards and put my own twist on them but Covid prevented them from being played. In 2023, I revised, polished, and constructed new arrangements for two trumpets, two saxes, keyboard, bass, and drums. I assembled a slightly different cast of characters for this group and called it “Eptás” (Gr: septet). The repertoire consists of my arrangements and compositions but I strayed from my previous writing style a bit. With four horns, I had greater latitude in the voicings and capitalized on a broader range of material. We recorded a demo with video and posted the links on YouTube.

In 2023, I pursued one of my musical bucket list items – I put on a concert of Greek music in Ashland, OR at Grizzly Peak Winery. I organized and orchestrated the event from top to bottom. I recruited my good friend George Mylordos to bring his bouzouki up to the valley along with his vocalist, Kosta Pappamichael. Accompanied by Chris Matthews/ drums, Jeff Addicott/bass, and Angela Koregelos/flute, we performed an evening of traditional Greek songs old and new. Some of the pieces can be found on YouTube.