Pat Senatore

Pat Senatore was born on August 19, 1935, in Newark, New Jersey. He began musical training on the violin at age five because his father believed the violin was the most important instrument in the orchestra. After hearing bassist Scott LaFaro, he switched to the double bass and committed himself to jazz.

Senatore attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York for two years. He left because the institution did not offer jazz instruction at the time, preferring the apprenticeship of working bands to a classical curriculum that left little room for improvisation.

In the early 1960s he toured the United States with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. With Kenton he recorded for Capitol Records on albums including Adventures in Blues (1961) and Adventures in Jazz (1962), gaining the big band experience that prepared him for national television and recording studios.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Senatore joined the Les Brown Orchestra and traveled to Vietnam with Bob Hope. He performed on The Bob Hope Show and The Dean Martin Show, becoming part of the network of studio and touring musicians who supplied West Coast television and popular music.

Alpert invited Senatore into the original Tijuana Brass around the mid-1960s. Senatore recorded on nine albums over roughly five years and toured internationally with the band during its commercial peak, appearing on South of the Border, SRO, Herb Alpert's Ninth and the Christmas Album for A&M Records.

In 1965 Senatore appeared with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on The Ed Sullivan Show performing A Taste of Honey. The broadcast helped fix the group's Ameriachi sound in the American living room and remains one of the most widely seen documents of Senatore's playing.

After leaving the Tijuana Brass in 1969, Senatore worked with singers and bandleaders including Carmen McRae, Peggy Lee, Louis Bellson, Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra. The breadth of that work showed how easily his bass adapted from pop chart records to jazz clubs and big band stages.

As a leader he recorded albums including Pasquale (Moo, 1997) and Ascensione (Fresh Sounds, 2008), featuring original compositions and collaborators such as Billy Childs, Billy Higgins, Paul Hanson, Pedro Eustache and Mike Barone. He also recorded with Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins in the VIP Trio.

In later years Senatore served as artistic director for Herb Alpert's Vibrato Grill Jazz in Bel Air, California, where he performed regularly. The role kept him at the center of Los Angeles jazz nightlife and extended his partnership with Alpert from the recording studio into a club he helped shape.

Senatore died on September 8, 2026, aged 91. Herb Alpert announced the death on social media, calling him an extraordinary musician and a warm, outgoing person who had traveled the world with the Brass and had been Vibrato's original music director. Jazz and bass outlets including No Treble carried obituaries in the days that followed.

Senatore's recorded legacy sits at the crossroads of jazz and mid-century popular music. Listeners still hear his bass on Tijuana Brass albums that sold in the millions, while musicians in Los Angeles remember the club regular who kept standards and original music alive at Vibrato and on his own trio dates.