Dean Saghafi was born on January 10, 1967, in Flushing, New York. He grew up in Flushing his entire life, and attended the local public schools. At eleven years old Dean took an interest to music. He learned how to play the clarinet, saxophones, flute and piano at the Flushing Branch of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. He studied his woodwind instruments with Joe Romano and studied piano and theory with Alan Kingsley. Dean became interested in Jazz after seeing the Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform at the Queens College’s Colden Center. There he got to meet Willie Humphrey, who inspired him. His earliest influences in Jazz were Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie. He was thirteen years old when he was first turned on to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. Dean then joined the Jazz Program at the Conservatory and studied under Enos Payne. Joe Romano’s and Enos Payne’s teaching gave Dean a strong foundation in jazz theory and improvizsation.

At 17 years old he attended the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at City College, where he completed Bachelors in Science degree and finished the basic science courses for his Medical Doctor Degree. He attended SUNY at Stony Brook Medical School, where he finished his third and fourth years. While a third-year medical student he did monoclonal antibody leukemia research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering under David Scheinberg. Dean received his Medical Doctor Degree from Stony Brook Medical School in May of 1992. Although academically these years were very challenging for him, they were dark years because he had to stop playing music for 8 years. During the end of his third year in Medical School, Dean rekindled his relationship with music. He started practicing and realized that playing music was his calling. He began his internal medicine residency at University Hospital at Suny Stony Brook and, after a year and a half, he quit his residency to pursue his musical endeavors.

During the last 19 years Dean has also been professionally playing Jazz, Latin Jazz, and Salsa music. He has performed with many jazz artists such as Walter Perkins, Dave Jackson, Butch Warren, and Michael Howell. He has also performed with many Afro-Caribbean artists such as Israel “Cachao” Lopez, the Ray Santos Orquesta, Viento de Agua, Cano Estremera, Cheo Feliciano and Andy Montanez. Dean has performed the Curacao Salsa Festival in 2000, and Johnny Ventura’s 50th Aniversary Festival in 2002 with Cuco Valoy.

Dean wanted to broaden his knowledge in jazz. He pursued a Masters Degree in Jazz Performance, at Queens College, under the mentorship of Michael Mossman and Antonio Hart. He completed studies and graduated in May of 2010. Moreover, Dean is teaching Logic Studio at Queens College for the Jazz Masters Program.

In addition to being a musician Dean is an audio engineer. He started teaching himself in 1996 and currently runs his own recording studio.

Dean continues to perform, teach and do recording sessions. He is in the process of finishing his first CD, “Wasteland’s Groove,” which he is dedicating to his neighborhood.