Steve
Griggs - Reviews
Interview
with Steve Griggs on KBCS 91.3
Gordon Todd: Steve,
thanks so much for coming in today. I really appreciate it.
Steve Griggs: Thank
you.
GT: Boy! Love this
record. Love Elvin Jones. I'm a huge Elvin Jones fan as you know and
maybe as some of you regular listeners know. Tell us how you put this
project together. It's a group of local musicians, very fine local musicians,
but you brought in THE world-class drummer living today.
SG: Yea. It was
kind of crazy. I wanted to get together with these Seattle musicians
and do a recording of my music. My son was just about to be born and
so I thought this was the last opportunity I'm going to have in a while
to get in the studio and spend this much time on something. I had worked
with Milo Petersen the guitarist quite a bit and he has recorded with
great drummers passing through town. Victor Lewis and Billy Hart, when
they came through town, he would ask them if they wanted to record and
so he's got some great recordings in the can. So I thought well here
comes Elvin Jones in town just at exactly the right time. I said, "Milo,
what do you think of recording with Elvin?" He said, "That's a great
idea and actually I know somebody who knows him." That's Gregg Keplinger
and Gregg has been a long time friend of Elvin. Gregg said, "Oh that's
a cool idea. When I meet him at the airport I will suggest that there
are some local guys that want to record and see what he thinks." As
soon as we met [Elvin] he's like, "When is the recording?" So after
he finished his tour in L.A. he came up here for three days and recorded
with us. I was just a dream come true.
GT: He's a very
open hearted man.
SG: He is very,
very generous. I am familiar of course with his playing because I have
listened to his recordings over the years. It's just a background of
me being a jazz saxophonist. So I was very comfortable with how he plays.
I guess I wasn't prepared for how warm of a person he was and how down
to earth and supportive and helpful and generous and present he was.
That was a very pleasant surprise.
GT: Well he must
have liked your compositions. Most of these are written by Steve, including
the title track "Jones for Elvin." He must have liked the tunes.
SG: Yea, he did.
He said he wanted some copies. I copied the book for him. He seemed
to really enjoy the music. I didn't know whether he was going to read
the charts or what was going to happen. It was pretty funny. He would
walk over and I would sing the melody to him. He would sit down at the
drums and we would play the melody through as a band once. Then we would
hit the "record" button and go. He would just nail it. I just couldn't
believe it how he could ingest this music the first time he had ever
heard it or seen it and literally be making such wonderful music on
the spot. It was a level of maturity I certainly have seen in musicians
I have worked with but he has such a personal stamp on what he does.
It comes out in such a unique way and such a relaxed and unique approach.
It was just fantastic.
GT: Even to the
casual listener, people who don't study drumming can tell it's Elvin.
SG: Yea.
GT: Why don't we
turn to another cut here. What should we listen to next?
SG: "Sparks" is
kind of fun. It's for bassist Phil Sparks. There was an interaction
during my solo that maybe listeners can pick up on. He plays some kind
of rim shots on his snare sometimes during my solo. When I heard that
I really felt like he was nudging me on and saying, "Yea, go… Go!" I
tried to pick up on that sometimes during my solo and play some single
notes that I felt were answering his rim shots. We had a lot of fun
on this one.
GT: Let's take a
listen to "Sparks" written by Steve Griggs as played by his quintet
featuring Elvin Jones…
GT: I know that
you have a career outside of music. How do you keep that balance between
your music - I mean obviously you and these other local musicians are
quite accomplished and I know that all three of them do music full-time.
Is that correct?
SG: Right.
GT: Milo, Phil,
and Jay.
SG: Sure.
GT: But for you,
how do you keep that balance? You're an accomplished writer, an accomplished
player, but you also have a day job that takes full-time.
SG: Right. Well,
at an early age I got very interested in music. So playing music has
always been very fun for me and something I always want to do. I actually
have an undergrad degree from the University of Illinois and had a formal
musical education as a classical saxophonist - that's almost an oxymoron.
GT: So your degree
is in music?
SG: My undergrad
degree. One of the people that I met in the community while I was in
school was a trumpet player named John Scott. We recorded one of his
songs on this record and I played in his group. Here was a guy who was
a player. He was a classmate of Herbie Hancock at Grinnell College,
wrote tunes with him, went to Berkley and played with Tony Williams
and in Herb Pomeroy's band. But also became an endodontist and was a
successful root canal surgeon. But he continued to write music. He continued
to organize bands, get gigs, play, and that was a real inspiration for
me to see somebody who kept music as a central activity in his life
but also had a professional career unrelated to music. And it turns
out I've kind of done the same thing. Actually I move to New York and
got my MBA at night school. A lot of musicians and artists and actors
in New York all get day jobs in offices and corporate headquarters.
And it turned out a file clerk across the hall from me was a guy named
Grover Mitchell who was a trombonist in the Count Basie band for years
and is actually running the Basie band now. In New York it is not uncommon
to see people who are very accomplished artists in their field but also
work in the corporate world. So that was a little affirmation for me
as well.
GT: You work here
in Seattle at…
SG: At Immunex Corporation,
a biotech firm. I manage a software programming group there. Actually
my boss' wife is a concert pianist. And my first boss when I was at
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, her husband was also a rock musician so I have
been lucky to have sympathetic managers who understand my urge to perform
and create so sometimes when I have an engagement or something they
have been pretty understanding when I'm a little bleary-eyed the next
morning.
GT: When did you
go into the studio to record all this music with Elvin Jones? It was
here at Bear Creek in Woodinville.
SG: Elvin usually
comes through in the spring and he will probably be here next April.
That's when I met him. It was in April of '98 and then he finished up
his tour in May so it was May 19th, 20th, and
21st of '98. He tours 10 months out of the year. It's kind
of amazing, 72-years-old and travelling the world still and playing
drums like he's a teenager.
GT: We want to turn
to this tune before the news comes up at 8 o'clock. We're going to hear
"Jay's Maze" because it has a great solo by Elvin. Can you tell us a
little about this?
SG: Basically I
wanted to try and feature Elvin when we recorded this. On the last day
I said, "This is Elvin Jones day" to him and he kind of chuckled. My
drummer friend Jeff Stitely - he's a Chicago drummer - came out and
he said, "Oh, you've got to play a duet with Elvin" and I hadn't really
planned on it but I said, "OK. Well we can fit it in on this one." So
near the end of this tune it's just a duet with Elvin and me on a minor
blues and then he plays a nice open solo.
GT: I just have
one more question. I know you recorded enough music for two records.
Do you think you're going to be releasing any more of this music later
on?
SG: Well the plan
is to release the second album in April around when Elvin comes. And
of course the better this one does the easier that one will be to do.
I do have another hour's worth of music that I want to put out and the
plan is next April.
GT: We have been
talking to saxophonist Steve Griggs about his new album "Jones for Elvin
- The Steve Griggs Quintet featuring Elvin Jones". It's got a beautiful
black and white and purple photograph of Elvin on the cover and you
can't miss it. It's on Hip City Records and you can find it around town.
SG: You can find
it at our release gigs. We will be at Borders Books downtown Seattle,
Friday noon to one. Then we're at Tula's, Friday night nine PM to one
AM. And then we'll be at Borders out in Redmond three to five PM on
Sunday, October 3rd. And they're also available at Bud's
Jazz Records, the downtown Borders, the Mercer Tower Records, and pretty
soon they will be at the University Tower and probably on the listening
station there.
GT: Thanks so much
for coming in.
SG: Thanks. It's
been a blast.
GT: Great, great
record. Congratulations. Let's listen to "Jay's Maze" composed by Steve
Griggs. This is duet with Steve and the great Elvin Jones on KBCS Drive
Time Jazz 91.3.