In Memoriam: Pat Senatore, 1935–2026

By Kirk Silsbee I Oct. 20, 2026

“Singing on the bass comes from my Italian heritage,” Senator said. “I want my bass to resonate, but I want to hear the lightness, too.”
(Photo: Courtesy of the Senatore family)

Pat Senatore, a well-regarded bassist and club owner, died Sept. 8 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 91.

He grew up in the Down Neck neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. Violin was his first instrument, but like his classmate Wayne Shorter, he was an art major at Arts School.

As a jazz-struck teenager, Senatore gravitated to the bass and sat in at the Sugar Hill jazz club. With a counterfeit ID card, he was a weekend regular at New York’s Birdland, hearing Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Marian McPartland and others.

In 1958, Senatore landed a scholarship to Juilliard, but left after two years, due to lack of jazz curricula. Senatore’s bass inspirations were Percy Heath, Scott LaFaro and Red Mitchell. “Singing on the bass comes from my Italian heritage,” he said. “I want my bass to resonate, but I want to hear the lightness, too. I love to play as melodically as possible.”

He moved to Los Angeles in early 1960. While Senatore waited his union transfer out, he met Herb Alpert at Local 47. “He said he’d keep me in mind,” Senatore recalled, “if anything turned up.”

While Pat jobbed around, Stan Kenton’s manager said they needed him and he wouldn’t have to audition. Pat played bass on Adventures In Blues (Creative World, 1961) and Adventures In Jazz (Creative World, 1963). Les Brown’s Orchestra was Senatore’s next stop, and he was on Bob Hope’s 1964 Vietnam tour.

Alpert assembled his Tijuana Brass band and chose Senatore. “Pat had a reputation,” Alpert says, “and he switched to electric bass for us. Our rhythm section of guitarist John Pisano, Pat and drummer Nick Ceroli got along beautifully, and gave us a flexible core. I wanted all of the guys to feel free within the format.” The TJB was an international phenomenon — outselling the Beatles in 1965, playing for President Johnson and touring the world. The band experienced fan reaction tantamount to Beatlemania.

“We were all jazz musicians,” Senatore recalled in 2007, “and we tried to play that music like we were playin’ jazz. People used to say, ‘You have such a good time onstage.’ That’s the attitude Herb wanted us to have — happy and carefree. In the studio, he’d give us a lead sheet, tell us the beat that he wanted — a shuffle or a groove — and most of those tracks were done in one take. And you’d go into a supermarket and hear this music; it was everywhere.”

The TJB disbanded in 1970, and later reunited a couple of times, but Senatore was back to jobbing. He met his wife, Barbara, at the Plaza Four in Century City. Six months later they opened Pasquale’s in Malibu. “I wanted a jazz club where you could hear a pin drop,” he noted in 2007, “but she really knew the business.”

Pasquale’s sat on the beach. For five years, it hosted Cedar Walton, Carmen McRae, Chick Corea, Joe Henderson, John Klemmer, Manhattan Transfer, Ernie Watts, Michel Petrucciani, Anita O’Day, Pat Metheny, Warne Marsh, Joe Pass, Freddie Hubbard, Pete Christlieb, Willie Bobo, Poncho Sanchez, Anita O’Day, Gary Foster and Jon Hendricks, among others. Art Pepper, Joe Farrell and Joe Roccisano had ongoing residences there. Senatore anchored the house rhythm section, with pianists Roger Kellaway, George Cables and Alan Broadbent, and drummers Roy McCurdy, Billy Higgins and John Guerin.

The club was continually plagued by acts of God. Mudslides, roaring tides, rain storms and washed-out roads kept people away. “Pasquale’s was a fight from day one,” Senatore conceded. “The coast in Malibu was eroding an inch a day.”

After relocating to a couple of rooms, Senatore took on the role of music director at Alpert’s Vibrato in 2003. The Bel Air restaurant hosted the likes of Chuck Mangione, Toots Thielemans, Gary Burton, Bobby Hutcherson and Senatore’s own trio of pianist Josh Nelson and drummer Mark Ferber. Nelson, now one of L.A.’s most valued pianists, says, “I learned so much at Vibrato, playing with the veterans and learning tunes on the stand. It was a master class, and I got some tough love from taskmasters like Carl Saunders.”

“Pat’s trios were a great experience,” Nelson continues, “but I really liked the duos we did. He was always reaching, looking ahead, and in love with playing.” DB