I am humbled and honored to have received the 2013 Chicago Music Award for Best Jazz Entertainer. There are so many great jazz musicians in this city, many of whom I still learn from, and many of whom are just as deserving of this award as I am, and it fills me with an overwhelming sense of appreciation that the people in the city who voted in the Chicago Music Awards would have chosen me for this honor.

Three years ago, I renewed my commitment to music and to peace. I had no albums out under my name, and I occupied my time playing at restaurants and as a sideman. At that point, I shed all other obligations and distractions in my life, and decided to surge forward with every ounce of effort that I had, determining to become one of the greatest pianists in the world, and determining to use my music to bring people together, empower people to become greater, and to become a force of peace within individuals, between people, and throughout the structures that make up our world.

Since then, I have toured the UK twice, released my first studio album under my name, and been played on all the major jazz stations in the US, and many around the world. I’ve found people after my shows coming up to me with tears in their eyes, and had people tell me that I’ve changed their lives. I’ve studied piano with Herbie Hancock, and performed with other people that I used to consider “idols” until I realized how similar we all are as human beings. My dreams are literally coming true before my eyes.

I know I have a long way to go; there is a huge amount of practice, study, experience, and work ahead of me. At the same time, having received this award is a huge encouragement to me along the way that I’m on the right path.

And now, given the trajectory of the past 3 years, and beginning the path of 2013 with the Chicago Music Award for Best Jazz Entertainer, this is going to be a very big, very exciting year.

Thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, to those who believe in me, those who support me, and those who encourage me. Thank you to everyone who has come to my concerts, given me opportunities to perform, performed with me, and everyone who has listened to my music. I have a dream, but you are the reason that this dream is becoming a reality, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Love and peace,
Greg Spero

I got this message from the Suzuki Orff Foundation’s newsletter today, and thought it was such a brilliant explanation of the need for music education in our society, I had to share it. Here’s what they wrote:

Why Music?

The study and performance of music serve as a unique and extraordinary tool for human development.  In our ever changing world, creative, communication, critical thinking and collaboration skills are proving to be essential for success. Below are examples of specific ways in which the study and performance of music enhances ones creative, communication, critical thinking and collaborative skills.

Through the study and performance of music we:
• Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes
• Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems
• Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solution
• Synthesize and make connections between information
• Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes
• Use a wide range of idea creation techniques (such as brainstorming)
• Create new and worthwhile ideas
• Elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate our own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts
• Develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others effectively
• Be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; incorporate group input and feedback into the work
• Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work and understand the real world limits to adopting new ideas
• View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes
• Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts
• Listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions
• Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams
• Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal
• Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member

For more info on how Suzuki Orff Foundation puts this into effect, check out this vid:

If we all push to get this in our public schools, the future of our country and the future of humanity will be a lot brighter.

The morning after the concert, I left the hotel with some sweet goodbyes to my friends with whom I had made the journey. This would begin the grassroots sector of my European adventure. I had requested a ticket back for April 23rd, rather than April 4th, when most of the Chicago family was returning, so I had more overseas excitement ahead.

From the hotel, I went to my friend Marion’s (“Carminelitta’s”) house. I had one night left in London before my train up to Cumbria, and Marion was generous enough to let me crash on her couch rather than staying at an expensive hotel somewhere in London.

Marion has a great music blog (www.carminelitta.com) where she covers a lot of the underground music that goes on in London and around the world. I met her when she was in Chicago through my friend and collaborator Chris Kramer, with whom I have worked on his music for Plug Research. In Chicago, Marion did a brief interview and covered me on her blog. Now that I was in her hometown, she came to the Buddy Rich Show and did a video interview that following evening, which you can view here:

http://www.carminelitta.com/2012/04/video-interview-greg-spero/

In return for the crash-pad, I cooked my patented Indian-like chicken dish for her, which is diced chicken boiled in a yogurt sauce with pineapple, orange juice, cyan pepper, and some other spices depending on what’s available. The food was great (despite claims by both Aija and Lisa back home that the dish couldn’t possibly taste good) and it was nice to have access to a kitchen for the first time on the trip.

The next morning at 7:30, I was off to Cumbria!

So, at this part of the adventure, I need to provide you with some backstory.

I was playing at Andy’s one evening and had a great conversation with a guy from England named David Gosling. Since he seemed to love the music and was from out of the country, I decided to give him a CD. He emailed me back later saying he loved it and that I should let him know when I was coming to England.

Fast forward about a year: I find out I’m going to England for the Buddy Rich concert. I email him a quick note to say I’m coming to London, and he asks me what I’m doing afterwards. Little did I know at the time, David would be an extremely instrumental ally for the rest of my trip as he actually has set up concerts in Cumbria for the likes of Andy Sheppard, Pee Wee Ellis, and Gwilym Simcock. To make a long story short, David was incredibly generous and ended up setting up four shows in different cities in northern England for me to play my original music as a trio.

David found two amazing musicians to accompany me: Andy Champion (bass) and Adrian Tillbrook (drums). Both of these guys took significant time to go through my charts and learn all the difficult parts of my original compositions. When we met before the first gig, they were very warm, sweet individuals, and we hit it off from the beginning musically and personally.

Til the next adventure,

Greg

Dear Friends, Family and Fans,

I am emailing you from a bus on my way to Bremen, Germany, shortly after leaving Paris, France. I can not begin to express what an amazing experience these past three weeks have been. It has been a non-stop adventure with little time to spare, but by popular demand, I am emailing you with with some stories. These are the adventures of my most recent trip through Europe, playing concerts, recording, meeting amazing people, and eating too much amazing food (mostly croissants…mostly while in Paris). By the time you’re reading this, I will be back home (hopefully) safe in Chicago, and will have a lot to share. Every Tuesday, I will post a new story on my blog until the story is complete. So, welcome to part one:

The Buddy Rich Memorial Concert

A few months ago, I was approached by the Buddy Rich Big Band to be the official piano player in the group. The group is lead by Cathy Rich, Buddy’s daughter. My friend Geoffrey Lowe was the one who recommended me for the group. Fast-forward several months, and we’re on a plane to London to play the concert for Buddy Rich’s 25th Memorial Anniversary.

The core group consists of Gregg Potter (drums), Sasha Brusin (guitar), Geoffrey Lowe (bass), Cathy Rich (vocals and manager), and myself (piano/synths). Every single person in this group is sweet, friendly, compassionate, and terribly fun/quirky/crazy in their own unique way, so all the rehearsals, traveling, and performance experiences have been AWESOME. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to adventure with.

We landed in London Saturday morning, and spent the day hanging, exploring downtown London, and attempting to stay awake an extra eighteen hours to kill the jet lag with the core group + Toby Cruse (promoter) and John Blackwell (drummer), both of whom added great vibes to the hang. Eventually, we went back to the hotel that night and crashed.

The next day was the rehearsal. This was the one rehearsal we had before the concert, and we were about to meet most of the people who would be performing with us the next day, including Dave Weckl, Ian Pace, Bruce Dickinson, and sixteen of London’s best horn players. This rehearsal went almost exactly as we had hoped. The horns nailed all the parts on the first take, and the drummers were all great (except for one funny story which I’ll only tell you in person). Everyone was exceptionally friendly and open (except for the one story, lol) and though it was a marathon seven-hour rehearsal, it went pretty smoothly. Then dinner, a hang, and sleep to get ready for the next morning’s sound check.

Then comes Monday, the day of the concert. We get to the Palladium at 11am, wait for everything to get set up, and then sound check. At this time, the crew also practiced the elaborate system they had set up for changing drummers in between songs. Each drummer had his or her own kit set up on a wheeling platform. When one drummer was finished, the techs would wheel him off stage, still sitting on his own drum set, and wheel the next drummer on stage from the other side. It was a pretty cool system, and made me very glad that I was not one of the techs at the concert who had to handle the physical logistics.

Then after a quick change back at the hotel (which was a couple blocks away), we’re ready to hit. The concert opened up with a SLAMMIN piece played by the core group with Gregg Potter on drums, and then the craziness ensued. Elliott Henshaw rocked out a couple pieces, then Gavin Harrison played an amazing arrangement of Killer Joe.

Cathy Rich, who was hosting the evening, introduced the second set with a song of her own. We did Buddy’s version of “The Beat Goes On”, with Cathy on vocals, at which point I broke into an extended synthesizer solo, rocking out on the moog sounds a-la my mentors Robert Irving III and Herbie Hancock. I got another chance to rock out on the synthesizer as we continued with pieces played by Gregg Potter on drums, sending the audience into a whirlwind of energy and excitement through our core group’s slamming sound.

Ian Pace and Bruce Dickinson took the stage to rock out “Smoke On The Water”, on which I played the organ parts as closely as possible to the original. I got a bunch of comments afterwards that my mannerisms while playing were very reminiscent of Deep Purple’s main keyboard player. Though I had never seen Deep Purple live, I figured that my tendency to dance around and visually rock-out while playing were probably relatively in-line with what a rock keyboardist would do. Also, I was wearing my rock-star-hat-and-shades outfit, so that probably helped with the simile.

Then Ginger Baker took the stage. Due to an earlier event, we decided to scrap the horn arrangement for Sunshine Of Your Love, so I ended up playing the melody with Ginger and the quartet. I must admit, it was quite a trip playing Eric Clapton’s original vocal parts on the organ, but we rocked out anyway, even into the extended 6/8(ish) jam at the end of the song under Ginger’s direction.

After Ginger, Gregg Potter rocked out a few more tunes, slamming the audience against the back-wall of the Palladium with a wall of amazing chops and killin’ energy.

Then it was Dave Weckl’s turn. Sitting in the piano chair next to Dave playing drums was quite a trip for me, as I’ve been listening to him since my first fusion band (called “Bucket Shop”) when I was 16 years old. Dave was on the first CD mix of great fusion that Robert Gay gave me when I joined this band of Chicago pros as “the kid” in the group. Dave slammed out four of Buddy’s swing pieces, nailing every bit of it. Then he broke into an extended drum solo piece, showing off an incredible depth of knowledge, precision, and compositional prowess on the instrument.

After Dave finished to a standing-ovation, Gregg Potter came out to do one last tornado of rocking-out, which lifted the audience into a frenzy of musical energy as more drummers came out one-by-one, trading solos with three drum sets on stage, and ending the concert in a battlefield of percussive madness with Gregg Potter, Dave Weckl, Ian Pace, Gavin Harrison, Elliott Henshaw and John Blackwell all on stage in a massive rhythmic jam.

The lights went out, the crowd went crazy, and we all let our shoulders down with a sigh of “Oh my God, we did it.”

The after-party was upstairs at the Palladium, and I got the chance to have some last conversations with my new friends from the past few days. Check back next week for part two of the adventure: The Trio in Northern England!

Peace and Love,

Greg

I would like to introduce you to the beginning step in a journey.

Using the language of pop and electronic music which connects directly to our primal human instincts, I will express the depth of complex musicality, human emotion and spirituality that grabs your soul in jazz music.

In the end, I plan to break down the barriers and create a dialogue between the genres, to give people the primally jarring experience of a dance concert with the musically orgasmic experience of jazz.

The purpose of music is to bring out greatness in people. It is to transport you to a state of deep emotion; pain, pleasure, gratitude, compassion, so that you may find a deeper understanding of yourself and bring out true greatness within your life.

Jazz music has a depth of history and spirituality behind it which fosters beautiful complex melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, all in the spirit of improvisation.

Today’s popular music, including the quickly-rising technology based genres such as house and dubstep, incorporate a depth of connection to the primal nature of every human being. These genres draw from the rich history of African and Latin rhythms, and superimpose the plethora of timbrel varieties made possible by software synthesis and contemporary production techniques.

The years of my musical development thus far have been focused on developing an understanding of music from the prospective of the acoustic piano. I have explored rhythm, melody, and harmony in the context of various acoustic vocabularies, culminating with my recent acoustic record, aptly titled “Acoustic.”

After the success of that project, I decided to spend the following months diving deeply into the use of Ableton, the APC40, other looping and effects technology, and looping/production techniques, with two goals in mind:

1) Understand the depth of musicality behind contemporary electronic music

2) Gain an understanding of this genre’s technology to the point where I can fluidly use it as an improvisatory instrument, as one would use a piano in a jazz setting

This video marks the beginning of my journey. This is my start at using dance music technology in an improvisatory fashion, playing keyboards along with pre-recorded loops, all controlled and created live in a compositional process similar to that of the improvisational jazz ensemble.

In this setting, Makaya McCraven is accompanying me on drums, adding an additional level of improvisatory communication to the soundscape.

As I continue to learn more about the intricacies of this technology’s capabilities, I will be able to incorporate the musical bases that I have studied in jazz music, which tap into the depth of emotion that has been passed through humans for generations. In the end, my hope is to touch people through this music in the deepest way possible, bringing out the greatest emotion, compassion, and life in those who choose to share in the moments.

I challenge YOU, the University of Chicago student body, to come up with lyrics to the University of Chicago Theme Song. I’ll produce the song WITH YOU singing, rapping, or however and premiere the recording at the show on March 2, 2012. The best lyrics will be showcased!

Submit all lyrics to greg@gregspero.com by Feb. 22, 2012 and I’ll produce the track with you that weekend (Feb. 25-26) so that it can be ready for the show on March 2, 2012.

Here are the details on the show:

http://www.facebook.com/events/275663792504096/

With your help, I’m going to throw a helluva bumpin’ party on Mardi Gras!

Thank you for participating, and I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with.

-G

Here’s a question that I received to my youtube channel that I wanted to respond to publicly:

”

Hi, I wanted to thank you for your great channel. I have not watched all your video’s yet. But going to.

I had a question about creating music and improv and what you do with your mind when you are creating. I saw that you do meditation. I basically can’t quiet my mind, and still pay attention when I am playing and hit the right notes. Do you have any thing that you do that can help me focus and clear my head, but still hit the correct notes and be creative. Thank you in advance.

Lou

”

My answer:

The natural human condition is to have an unfocused, scattered thought process, which is often the root of the ineffectiveness of many of us. If you look at most animals, you’ll see a random, very short-term attention span. For example, when you look at a dog’s behavior, you see “Oh, food! I’m hungry. I want to play. I feel threatened now by this. oh wait, food?” and it goes on like this. This tends to be how the human mind works, but on a much more complicated level.

However, because of our advanced minds, we have the ability to become aware of this natural process, and culturally we have developed ways to quiet the noise, and turn our actions into a thoughtful, focused, spear-like weapon.

This focus is what great entrepreneurs use to become hugely successful. It is also the same focus that the great jazz musicians use to get so deeply into their music, and they are able to seem almost beyond natural human capabilities in artistry and technique.

However, in the end, it is inherently what makes us human; the ability to focus with an advanced intellect.

However, the more potential you have, the more difficult it is to use that potential. If you are smarter, then your mind is more active, and your mind creates more noise more quickly. The only way to really use that potential is to unify the noise into a single message, in one way or another. Michael Jordan used aggression to do this – he would get himself as angry as possible before every game, which put his mind into a spear-like focused state. And because of this, along with his intellect and his constant refinement of his skills, he was the best.

Coltrane used drugs for a while, then switched to meditation. Bird used heroin to let go of the noise. Herbie Hancock uses meditation and chanting, and so do I.

That is all to say this; you really answered your own question by posing your question. You saw that I do meditation. That is my way of quieting my mind so I can focus. I’m still working on it, and honestly I don’t think I meditate enough, though that is a challenge I am working on myself. If you can’t quiet your mind, try something to quiet it. Take action. I would highly recommend meditation over the other forms (drugs, aggression, etc) because meditation is the most healthy that I have witnessed, and allows for the happiest and most peaceful life, even in seemingly chaotic environments (I recall a singer that I once worked with saying ‘You’re like a buddha or something’ when she noticed me meditating at a barstool in an insanely loud, rowdy club before we played).

If you really want to quiet your mind, try chanting for 20 minutes, and then sitting for another 40 minutes just focusing on your mind. Do this in the morning and at night for one week to try it out. Just sit up straight, imagine yourself like an immovable mountain, and listen to your mind – observe the thoughts that go through your head. As you sit and observe them, they will quite, and you will break through the noise.

For info on chanting, here’s a little resource I found: http://www.guernsey.net/~moorman/HOW_TO_CHANT.html

For info about my experience with buddhism, Revive Da Live did a nice article on my thoughts:

http://revivalist.okayplayer.com/2011/12/07/greg-spero-greater-than-you-can-hear/

I hope this helps. Feel free to respond to this post with more questions.

Peace and Love,

Greg

You know how sometime you feel lucky to be where you are? Like, something in the universe has been so generous to you to let you exist in that moment?

That’s what I felt like at the Jazz Showcase on Friday. Playing with Mike Arnopol, one of my favorite bassists, and Makaya McCraven, one of my best friends and first call drummer for anything I do, in an acoustic setting where there’s nothing to hide behind, standing/sitting on stage and bearing our souls to people who are anxious to embrace our humanity and connect with us.

Many of my best most sincere fans came out, and a huge amount of family also came out to support. The band and audience felt the energy light lightening, especially during the second set, which brought the audience to their feet more than once, and inspired yells of intensity and appreciation throughout the set.

And I baked cookies. I often try to do something special for the audience, and because the Jazz Showcase is a little more laid back than most clubs, I took advantage of the opportunity to bake 6 batches of cookies to give to the entire audience. I was happy to see my supporters enjoying freshly baked chocolate chip cookies simultaneous with my music.

We’re talking to the showcase about doing a 4 night run there, and if we do, I’m going to think of a way to make it really special. Stay tuned, and I look forward to seeing you soon .

Peace and love,

Greg Spero