Greg Osby
Encyclopedia
Greg Osby is an American
jazz
saxophonist who plays mainly in the free jazz
, free funk
and M-Base
idioms.
, Osby studied at Howard University
, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music
, with Andy McGhee
. He played on Jack DeJohnette
's Special Edition, and has recorded with Steve Coleman
, Jim Hall
and Andrew Hill
(setting the stage for Hill and Hall's later appearance on Osby's The Invisible Hand).
He began recording albums under his own name for JMT Records
in the 1980s, but his most celebrated work has been a run of records for Blue Note
. Like Coleman, Osby likes to discover fresh talent and give players a chance to grow within his own band: he was responsible for giving exposure to the young pianist Jason Moran
, who appeared on most of Osby's 1990s albums (including the live album Banned in New York and an experiment with adding a string quartet to the band, Symbols of Light).
Osby has contributed to the homages to Miles Davis
's 1970s electric jazz
performed by Henry Kaiser
and Wadada Leo Smith
's "Yo Miles" group. The Village Voice
critic Francis Davis
wrote of his contribution to their double album Upriver, "Greg Osby superimposes his own brand of rhythmic complexity (one fully worthy of Wayne Shorter
) on the rhythm section's static vamps every time he steps forward."
In 2003 Osby toured with The Dead
, which was a reincarnation of The Grateful Dead
for a full North American tour. He also has contributed in various lineups with Phil Lesh and Friends
.
Since 2007, Greg has been an active endorser of P. Mauriat Saxophones, playing a 67R DK alto http://monteverdemusic.com/pdetail.php?cid=5&id=50 and a System 76 DK soprano http://monteverdemusic.com/pdetail.php?cid=8&id=72. He was featured in a series of magazine ads in Down Beat
http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2009/DB0509/single_page_view/25.html, JazzTimes
and Saxophone Journal in early 2009. He is currently on faculty in the Ensemble Department at Berklee College of Music
.
Greg was named Playboy Magazine's "Jazz Artist of the Year" in the March 2009 http://www.innercirclemusic.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=74&sid=7f9c602b4ca54cd30b1c9d32ac4572eb issue.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
saxophonist who plays mainly in the free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
, free funk
Free funk
Free funk is a term that Allmusic and writer Scott Yanow use to describe a combination of avant-garde jazz with funk music that developed in the 1970s. Leaders of the genre include Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time group, Ronald Shannon Jackson and his group Decoding Society, Jamaaladeen Tacuma...
and M-Base
M-Base
The term "M-Base" is used in several ways. In the 1980s, a loose collective of young African-American musicians including Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Greg Osby emerged in Brooklyn with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression...
idioms.
Biography
Born in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Osby studied at Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
, with Andy McGhee
Andy McGhee
Andy McGhee is a tenor saxophonist and educator.Andy McGhee graduated from New England Conservatory in 1949 and worked for a short time with trumpeter Roy Eldridge and local Boston musician Fat Man Robinson...
. He played on Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
's Special Edition, and has recorded with Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
, Jim Hall
Jim Hall (musician)
James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s...
and Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
(setting the stage for Hill and Hall's later appearance on Osby's The Invisible Hand).
He began recording albums under his own name for JMT Records
JMT Records
JMT Records was a record label that specialised in contemporary jazz. It was run by Stefan Winter.JMT recorded artists included Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, and Django Bates. The entire JMT catalogue is being re-released by Winter & Winter, Stefan Winter's new label....
in the 1980s, but his most celebrated work has been a run of records for Blue Note
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
. Like Coleman, Osby likes to discover fresh talent and give players a chance to grow within his own band: he was responsible for giving exposure to the young pianist Jason Moran
Jason Moran (musician)
Jason Moran is a jazz pianist and composer who debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of stride piano, avant-garde jazz,...
, who appeared on most of Osby's 1990s albums (including the live album Banned in New York and an experiment with adding a string quartet to the band, Symbols of Light).
Osby has contributed to the homages to Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
's 1970s electric jazz
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
performed by Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser (musician)
Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...
and Wadada Leo Smith
Wadada Leo Smith
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is a trumpeter and composer working primarily in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation.-Biography:...
's "Yo Miles" group. The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
critic Francis Davis
Francis Davis
Francis Davis is an American author and journalist. He is best known as the jazz critic for The Village Voice, and a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. He has also worked in radio and film, and taught courses on Jazz and Blues at the University of Pennsylvania...
wrote of his contribution to their double album Upriver, "Greg Osby superimposes his own brand of rhythmic complexity (one fully worthy of Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
) on the rhythm section's static vamps every time he steps forward."
In 2003 Osby toured with The Dead
The Dead (band)
The Dead is an American rock band composed of some of the former members of the Grateful Dead.After the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann formed a band called The Other Ones. They performed concert tours in 1998 , 2000 , and 2002, and released one...
, which was a reincarnation of The Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
for a full North American tour. He also has contributed in various lineups with Phil Lesh and Friends
Phil Lesh and Friends
Phil Lesh and Friends is an American rock band formed and led by Phil Lesh, former bassist of the Grateful Dead.Phil & Friends is not a traditional group in that several different lineups of musicians have played under the name, including groups featuring members of Phish, Little Feat, and the Zen...
.
Since 2007, Greg has been an active endorser of P. Mauriat Saxophones, playing a 67R DK alto http://monteverdemusic.com/pdetail.php?cid=5&id=50 and a System 76 DK soprano http://monteverdemusic.com/pdetail.php?cid=8&id=72. He was featured in a series of magazine ads in Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2009/DB0509/single_page_view/25.html, JazzTimes
JazzTimes
JazzTimes is a magazine that dates back to Radio Free Jazz, a publication founded in 1970 by Ira Sabin when he was operating a record store in Washington, DC. It was originally a newsletter designed to update shoppers on the latest jazz releases and provide jazz radio programmers with a means of...
and Saxophone Journal in early 2009. He is currently on faculty in the Ensemble Department at Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
.
Greg was named Playboy Magazine's "Jazz Artist of the Year" in the March 2009 http://www.innercirclemusic.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=74&sid=7f9c602b4ca54cd30b1c9d32ac4572eb issue.
Discography
| Title | Recorded | Released | Label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greg Osby And Sound Theatre | 05-06/1987 (*) | 1987 | JMT | |
| Mindgames | 05/1988 | 1988 | JMT | |
| Seasons Of Renewal | 07/1989 | 1989 | JMT | |
| Man-Talk For Moderns Vol. X | 10-11/1990 | 1991 | Blue Note | |
| 3D-Lifestyles | 1993 | Blue Note | ||
| Black Book | 1995 | Blue Note | ||
| Art Forum | 1996 | Blue Note | ||
| Further Ado | 1997 | Blue Note | ||
| Zero | 01/1998 | 1998 | Blue Note | |
| Banned in New York | 1998 | Blue Note | Live | |
| Friendly Fire Friendly Fire (Joe Lovano & Greg Osby album) Friendly Fire is an album by the American jazz saxophonists Joe Lovano and Greg Osby recorded in 1998 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:... |
12/1998 | 1999 | Blue Note | with Joe Lovano Joe Lovano Joseph Salvatore "Joe" Lovano is a post bop jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. Since the late 1980s, Lovano has been one of the world's premiere tenor saxophone players, earning a Grammy award and several nods on Down Beat magazine's critics' and readers' polls... |
| New Directions | 05/1999 | 2000 | Blue Note | with Stefon Harris Stefon Harris Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"... , Jason Moran Jason Moran (musician) Jason Moran is a jazz pianist and composer who debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of stride piano, avant-garde jazz,... , Mark Shim Mark Shim Mark Shim is a jazz tenor saxophonist.Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shim's family moved to Canada when he was eight and then settled in Richmond, Virginia five years later. He started on sax in seventh grade, graduating from high school in 1991 and attending Virginia Commonwealth University and... |
| The Invisible Hand | 09/1999 | 2000 | Blue Note | With Gary Thomas Gary Thomas Gary Thomas is an American jazz saxophonist and flautist from Baltimore, Maryland. He is a member of Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition band and has worked with John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Greg Osby, Wayne Shorter, Ravi Coltrane, Cassandra... , Andrew Hill Andrew Hill Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s... , Jim Hall Jim Hall (musician) James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s... , Scott Colley Scott Colley Scott Colley is an American jazz bassist and Composer.Scott has performed extensively in bands led by: Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Andrew Hill, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Pat Metheny, Carmen McRae, Edward Simon, Adam Rogers, Brian Blade, David Binney, Antonio Sanchez, Kenny Werner... , Terri Lyne Carrington Terri Lyne Carrington Terri Lyne Carrington is a jazz drummer, composer, record producer and entrepreneur. She has played with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many more... |
| Symbols Of Light (A Solution) | 01/2001 | 2001 | Blue Note | |
| Inner Circle | 04/1999 | 2002 | Blue Note | |
| St. Louis Shoes | 01/2003 | 2003 | Blue Note | |
| Public | 01/2004 | 2004 | Blue Note | Live |
| Channel Three | 02/2005 | 2005 | Blue Note | |
| 9 Levels | 08/2008 | 2008 | Inner Circle Music |