James Chirillo comes from Bellevue, Washington. Majoring in music composition at North Texas State University, he also studied guitar with Jack Petersen and was a member of the prestigious One O'clock Lab Band, recording several albums, including Grammy nominee Lab '76. From 1977-79, he worked regularly with singers Marilyn Maye, Vic Damone, Joey Heatherton, Lorna Luft, and pianist Roger Williams, and then spent three years with the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y.

Moving to New York City in 1982, he was privileged to work with many of the swing era's recognized greats, studying with both Remo Palmier and 4-string guitarist "Tiny" Grimes, and appearing at the West End Café with artists such as Eddie Durham, Eddie Barefield, Earle Warren, Joe Newman, and Haywood Henry.

As a member of Benny Goodman's last band, his performances included the PBS television broadcast Let's Dance. With the Buck Clayton Orchestra he toured Europe in the summer of 1991, and played such venues as New York's Village Vanguard. Working regularly with clarinettist Kenny Davern, he recorded the newly released The Kenny Davern Quartet: In Concert at the Outpost Performance Space.

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a 1995 Jazz Composition Grant for the Homage Concerto for Clarinet and Jazz Orchestra*, written for clarinettist Ken Peplowski and the Loren Schoenberg Jazz Orchestra. He composed/arranged the title track of Mr. Schoenberg's CD Manhattan Work Song (on Jazz Heritage - voted "worthy of wider recognition" by the Village Voice, 1993) and arranged the title track of Out Of This World (on TCB Records). He has also written arrangements for singers Daryl Sherman, the late Bobby Short and is much in demand on NYC's free-lance scene, while continuing his studies with composer/arranger Bill Finnegan.

After performing on dozens of albums, he was invited by Nagel-Heyer Records to record his debut as leader --- Sultry Serenade --- selected by the director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University Dan Morgenstern as one of his top five Critics’ Picks for the Year 2000 in Jazz Times magazine, and as one of critic C. Michael Bailey's Top Ten List of Jazz Releases for 2000 at allaboutjazz.com.