A child prodigy pianist, Raymond De Felitta was the youngest member of the ‘Maple Leaf Club’, a country-wide organization devoted to the preservation and performance of ragtime music. The ‘Maple Leaf Club’ was at the center of the 1970s ‘Ragtime Revival’ movement and introduced Raymond to ragtime and traditional artists such as Eubie Blake, Terry Waldo and Joshua Rifkin, the latter of whom he studied music history with while attending Bard College.

As a teenager growing up in Hollywood, he studed piano with the legendary composer/arranger/pianist Clare Fischer as well as studio great, Lou Bowers. As a straight-ahead/bop player in his twenties, De Felitta often played at many Los Angeles area clubs with jazz legends such as Monte Budwig, Buddy Arnold, Red Callender and others.

His passion for jazz, combined with his love of filmmaking, led to his documentary ‘Tis Autumn; The Search For Jackie Paris’, a study of the mysterious life of the eponymous jazz vocalist. The film contains interviews with many jazz greats including Hank Jones, James Moody, Mark Murphy, Billy Taylor, Ruth Price, Terry Gibbs and others.

His recordings include ‘Movies ‘Til Dawn’, a CD of original music (out of print);‘Monday Morning Quarterbacks’, a piano/vocal collaboration with fellow filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; ‘Fatha’Land’, a solo piano tribute to piano great Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines and his newest CD; ‘Pre-War Charm’, which De Felitta considers calls his ‘first fully-realized classic jazz recording’. ‘Pre-War Charm’ will be the first in a trilogy of CDs focused on popular music from different decades. The next installment, ‘Mid-Century Modern’, will focus on popular music of the mid-1950s through early 1960s and is currently being recorded for a projected 2021 release.