Weekday Mornings:
Rafe’s passion for jazz has its roots in his teenage years, when he became fascinated with the 70s fusion sounds of The Brecker Brothers, John Tropea, Return To Forever, and David Sanborn. He put his love of the groove into action as the drummer in a 10-piece cover band called The Funk Machine in his hometown of Passaic, NJ.
Rafe’s groove knowledge helped him land his first job in the radio biz in the early 80s as a research assistant to legendary air personality/program director Frankie Crocker at NY’s WBLS-FM. As the decade progressed, Rafe leveraged his valuable radio experience and musical chops into stints as a club d.j., a songwriter, a music producer, and a record label owner.

In the 90s, Gomez became fascinated by the cool sounds of acid jazz, which he began spinning at venues in the NY/NJ area. He also began producing jazzy library music for television and film, including original programming on MTV.

Eager to get back into radio again, Rafe approached Sirius Satellite Radio in early 2002 with the idea of a jazz mix show. Sirius became interested, and soon launched “In The Mix”, a six-hour weekend program that was mixed and hosted by Rafe and was featured on Sirius’ Planet Jazz channel. Word of “In The Mix”, which was the first jazz mix show on American radio, spread quickly on jazz Web sites, and Rafe was contacted by commercial radio executives with the idea of creating a jazz mix show for "terrestrial" radio. The concept quickly became a reality with “The Groove Boutique”, which debuted on CD101.9 in September ’03.

http://www.thegrooveboutique.com