Gary Rich specializes in jazz standards, bebop, and blues. A trumpet player, songwriter, singer, and teacher for most of his adult life, his time in Dallas included stints with the Dallas Cowboys Band, the Funk Monsters, Idle Hands, and the New Collection.
Rich arrived in San Diego in early 2014. He teaches privately in San Diego and performs with a variety of musicians in intimate Jazz settings, as well as performing with the reggae band Vibes Up Strong.
In 2018, Rich launched his musical Ameriwanica, extolling the health benefits of medical marijuana. “The inspiration came from watching a documentary about a little girl with epilepsy who was seizing 300 times a week,” Rich told the Reader. “She got treated with CBD oil [with no psychotropic compound] and her seizures stopped immediately...I was inspired by that to write a song called ‘Seizure’s Palace.’ After that I saw another program about treating Crohn’s disease with marijuana and I got the idea for a storyline.”