Amado's 20-year music career is characterized by a gradual shift from writi… Read Full Bio ↴Amado's 20-year music career is characterized by a gradual shift from writing and recording music influenced by progressive rock to live performance in a funky style of jazz and blues. Born December 15, 1968, he spent his childhood in central New York State, where he was introduced to music through grade-school trombone lessons. As a teenager he was inspired by progressive rock, a style that tried to lift rock music to a level where it might be taken more seriously as an art form. He taught himself how to play basic piano, absorbed the sounds of Queen, Rush, Styx, Asia, Yes, Howard Jones, and (slightly later) Prince, and started writing songs. His first rock performance experience was as a vocalist in a "rock ensemble" group sponsored by his high school, which performed a variety of the light pop-rock tunes of the time.

After high school he went to college, continued writing, and spent some time singing in pickup rock bands and in of one of the school's extra-curricular a capella groups as a founding member. Here he was first introduced to a MIDI studio, and used it to make some of his first self-produced recordings. Following graduation he moved to Baltimore, MD, set up his own home MIDI studio, and continued to write.

Desiring to develop more as a musician, Amado returned to college to earn a music degree. While there he received four years of classical vocal instruction, composition workshops of a decidedly avante-garde bent, and traditional music theory. It was here that his writing started to turn from progressive rock's more traditional, quasi-symphonic bravado towards art rock's more experimental sounds. During this same time period, he received three years of jazz theory and keyboard instruction and two years of jazz vocal workshop instruction, and was introduced to the music of the swing era. By graduation he had learned a whole catalog of jazz songs and gained some performance experience in the Washington, D.C. area as a jazz vocalist.

In terms of recorded output, the years immediately following graduation were Amado's most productive. His debut disc Wanderlust was completed in 1998, and featured a selection of his progressive- and art-rock influenced songs written between 1987 and 1996. Later that year an EP of instrumental material called Forget the Words appeared, with songs culled from Amado's vault of master tapes from the same period. The following year saw the completion of Jazz, an album that marks the beginning of his explorations of different traditional jazz styles. These works were later "released" on the fledgeling website mp3.com in its first incarnation as a haven for independent artists.

Meanwhile he gained more experience and explored different jazz styles by singing as a guest vocalist with a wide variety of jazz groups in Baltimore, and subsequently Philadelphia, PA. In 1999 he settled in central Florida, where he became a founding member of the funky blues band the Syndicators. The group had some regional success, and in 2003 was hand-picked by the Bose corporation to be one of only 24 bands nationwide to help them introduce their new live amplification system. The group split in 2005 to pursue other projects.

Amado's current projects include performing funky jazz and blues with his new band, Upbeat, appearing recently at the Hard Rock Live in Orlando. He sits on the Board of Directors of the blues society in central Florida, the Orange Blossom Blues Society. He is rebuilding his home recording studio, completing an EP featuring some more of his earlier, as-yet-unreleased songs, and writing new material inspired by his recent live experience in funky jazz and blues.