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

Hi all!

If you’re in Chicago this weekend, this’ll be the time to get out of the house. One fan even just informed me she’s flying in all the way from Toronto for these shows. If you’re in Chicago, no excuses

This weekend will be my US CD Release concerts. The Canadian CD Release went really well last month – a packed house and great reviews of the show, not to mention the energy in the room was just electric.

If you want to check out a glimpse of it, watch this video (it’s the encore…a song you might recognize, which we’ll also be performing this weekend):

http://youtu.be/nUBtBmPDVZ4

Or of you’re more ADD like me, watch the shortened version that just has the “rocking out” moments…lol:

http://youtu.be/_ZSY5JiplUM

Aaaaand if you want to come to the show, get the details here:

http://www.facebook.com/events/122718591176107/

or if you don’t have facebook, deets are on my website here:

www.gregspero.com

enough links for you? lol.

That’s all I’ll talk about right now…though I’ve been so lucky lately to have some amazing things happening in my musical life…all thanks to other people like Greg Pasenko promoting my album worldwide, Le Wang tackling the online media, and Paul Brisske doing a lot of the groundwork so I can sit at the piano and practice all day….and not to mention you, the people listening, absorbing, and appreciating my music, connecting your soul with mine through our ears and hearts. That’s undoubtably the most important part, so thank you for sharing that with me.

So, more to come soon about international blogs, blujazz festival, new york APAP showcase, etc…but first, lets have a blast this weekend.

Thank you!!!

Peace and love,

Greg

Firstly, let me say thank you to everyone who entered the video competition. The purpose of this video competition was to inspire creativity, passion, and expression. We had so many amazing videos, you really nailed this purpose with flying colors.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can see the winning announcement here:

And if you want to watch the winning video, check it out here:

Lastly, I wanted to just share a story that one of the contestants posted to my blog. His name is Robyn August, and he did a great, hilarious, deeply thoughtful video that you can view here:

This was the experience he shared:

”
So one day I receive an e-mail from a member of this fantastic San Diego based band called SO3. I had just recently directed their first music video (containing sweet dance moves) which you can see here –>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DWiH0g1wBs .Apparently they were friends with guy named ummm….uh…SPED…SPEN…SPERO!!! Yeah Greg Spero! Man could this guy play piano! Anyways, they said I should direct a video and submit. Of course I jump to challenge immediately. I call my favorite DP, who has a great camera to collaborate . I’m getting a story together, things are really moving and shaking when BANG! my DP drops out due to big plans last minute.
“ya know what! I’ll just do this myself!” I thought. “I have an older, not so hot camera but all I need is a great story and some really good actors to translate it! But wait…I have two days…who am I gonna get in two days??”
So there I was stuck in a dilemma. Not only do I have to write, direct and edit this thing, but I now had to act in it. So the only outcome I could think of was that I needed to act with…well, myself. And so this story was born. The biggest hurdle was that 7 hours before the competition deadline, when I was ready to edit, I realized I couldn’t. I had recently purchased a new computer because my last one took a nose dive to my tile. I tried to upload my Final Cut software again and it rejected the old version. So I had to edit on iMovie…which I’ve never used before. Let’s just say it was a learning experience, sort of like the video. So here you have a crazy one-man, 24 hr processed, self discovery music video set to the smooth ear candies of Greg Spero. Hope you enjoy it. All storytelling and jokes aside, thank you for letting me participate in this competition with so many other talented filmmakers. I checked them all out and was very impressed. Good luck to everyone!
”

I was so happy to hear this, along with a couple other experiences, which you can find by checking out my earlier blog entries.

So again, thank you to everyone who participated. Stay tuned, we will do this again.

I hope to see you at the CD release this weekend!

Peace and Love,
Greg Spero

Indie Nation asked me to give them a response to Nicholas Payton’s blog post “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore…”

Nicholas Payton is an amazing trumpet player and composer based in New York. Here is his blog post on which Indie Nation asked for my response:

http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/on-why-jazz-isnt-cool-anymore/

Here’s my response:

The evolution of the mentality of humanity inching towards true equality is an incredibly important point.

What we call our music is not.

People who get stuck in a name end up circling their lives around a semantic fallacy. Music is not about what you call it. Music is about a lineage of sound and rhythm passed down through culture and human experience, and what we create from that as is transforms via our soul and our body.

So, you can call my music Jazz. You can call my music Hip-Hop, classical, or rock. You can call my music whatever the fuck you want – as long as you’ll listen to it and let it effect you how it shall. Because the name means nothing. The name is just marketing. It’s the sound and the spirit and the soul of our human nature that you’re manifesting…how could that compare to the idea of a name? It’s like trying to name God.

It’s about the life, the experience, and the sound. Fuck the name.

One of my main goals in this competition was to inspire creativity and passion in people. I just got a comment on a blog post where I asked people to tell me their stories about their experience in the video competition thus far, and my heart was warmed to get this post about a girl who made this video her own personal challenged, and then conquered the challenge with an inspiring video that a lot of us can probably relate to. Her name is Esperanza Benavides, and here’s what she wrote about her experience:

“Let me just say, how excited I am to have my film in this competition. It is a huge opportunity for me to have my work showcased to professionals and to most of my closest friends and family. It really is a different experience to have worked so intensely on a project in such a short amount of time, and then having to promote it. This film has defiantly made a big impact on me, and I am grateful to share it.

When I first started the project, I wanted to know more about how the music was created and what the song meant. Immediately, I called Greg, the artist, and asked him about his personal interpretation of the song. He told me about his inspiring story when he dropped everything in his life and suddenly started to travel. Eventually, he found this overwhelming sense of something that was bigger than him and even bigger than life itself.

The origins of the song were so awesome. Initially, I had no idea how I could compare myself to that story and then make it into my own music video. After a while, I started to realize that making movies is my force that feels bigger than life. I love directing films and I hope to someday have a career in filmmaking. However, before the project, I wasn’t sure about where I was as a filmmaker. I am in my last year of film school, and I don’t feel that I have enough to show for it. I always notice how others are doing better than me, and I didn’t feel as though I was at the right level of where I should be in my career.

Finally, I decided that I would use this video as my own personal challenge. I planned to be totally creative, open to ideas, and captivate an audience with my own story. I told myself, if I didn’t accomplish those things in this challenge, then I would question if I even deserve to pursue a future in filmmaking.

So, I decided to make a story about a girl who loves dancing. Even though she is a good dancer, there are still girls better than her, and she is not at the spot light position where she wants to be. Yet, she imagines herself as the lead. Sound familiar?

This music video is very personal to me. I have been in ballet for seven years, I have been making movies for longer, and now I hope that I can show the audience a little piece of my story.”

I had a good feeling about her when she called me before the competition started. In fact, her call was one of the things that gave me confidence that the competition would succeed in inspiring people to get up and create something special. Thank you Esperanza, for showing yourself and everyone that we can do anything if we decide that we will emerge victorious.

Peace,
G

PS: Here’s the video she made!

At this point I would like to recognize someone who I endearingly refer to as a “Super-Fan”.

Chon Lemon was one of the first people to purchase my album “Radio Over Miles” when I released it in February of 2010. She loved it so much that she told everyone she could about the CD, and kept it in her car stereo, playing on repeat whenever she was driving (which was a lot), until the disc literally wore out. She brought it back to me with the marks from the CD-player in obvious circles around the disc. I was so touched that I gave her a new one.

A few months later, after I had sold out of the album, she came to another show to get another one because she had given the copy away to her friend who she wanted to share it with. I thought I had sold completely out, but upon searching the depths of the trunk of my car, I found one last copy. She then bought it, and is enjoying and sharing it to this day.

After hearing about my CD release in December for my upcoming album “Acoustic”, she contacted me on Facebook to let me know I should bring plenty of CDs to the CD release, cause she’ll be there on the 17th.

Now that’s what I would call a Super-Fan. Thank you Chon. Let me know what time you’re coming on the 17th, and how many people you’re bringing, and I’ll personally reserve you a VIP table near the stage .

Peace,
G