Lou Grassi

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Lou Grassi in January 2005

Louis Thomas "Lou" Grassi (* 21st January 1947 in Summit , New Jersey ) is an American jazz - drummer who primarily as a musician and bandleader of modern creative and new improvised music became known.

Live and act

Grassi began playing the drums at the age of 15 and received private lessons from Tony Inzalaco and Sam Ulano . From 1965 to 1968 he was a regular soldier; first he studied at the Navy School of Music in Norfolk ; until 1968 he played in the 328th US Army Band. He then left the army and studied first at Berklee College of Music and then percussion with Nick Cerrato at Jersey City State College , where he graduated with a bachelor's degree. In 1974, Grassi received a National Endowment for the Arts scholarship that allowed him to take private lessons with Beaver Harris . Grassi also studied arranging with trombonist Marshall Brown . Even while serving in the army, he had already experimented with free improvisation, which he developed further in the early 1970s. At that time he was working with mixed media projects, for example with singer Sheila Jordan and bassist Jimmy Garrison . From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Grassi was not active in the free jazz scene. During this time he played in various styles from ragtime to gospel and dixieland jazz to swing and bebop for a living. In 1984 he founded the formation The Dixie Peppers , a swing and Dixieland sextet, with whom he worked until the 1990s. In 1989 he also appeared with Warren Vaché's Syncopatin 'Seven at the Dixieland Festival Dresden .

In 1991 Grassi resumed his activities in the field of free improvisation and creative jazz and worked with the German pianist Andreas Böttcher , with whom he recorded two albums. In 1994 he became a member of the New York Improvisor's Collective , a loose organization of free improvising musicians, dancers, poets and painters who come together for festivals and concerts. Grassi performed at the 1995 Cadence Jazz Festival with the Pogressions ensemble . This resulted in the Po Band with the original line-up of Grassi, Herb Robertson , Steve Swell , Perry Robinson and Wilber Morris in the mid-1990s , with whom he recorded a number of albums for the CIMP label. Tom Varner ( Neo Neo , 1999), Paul Smoker ( PoZest , 1999), Marshall Allen , ( The Joy of Being , 2001) and Joseph Jarman also appeared as guest musicians on subsequent albums of the Po band ; on the album ComPOsed (2002) John Tchicai .

Grassi has been playing in a trio with Günter Heinz and Fred Van Hove since 2000 . Since 2003 he has formed a trio with saxophonist Martin Speicher and bassist Georg Wolf ("Shapes and Shadows"). In 2008 he performed with Scott Roller (violoncello) and Christoph Irmer (violin) in Wuppertal; with the Bach and Blues program with the trumpeter Frank Bartsch , the cellist Ulrich Thiem and the vibraphonist and pianist Andreas Böttcher. In 2008 the trio album by Bill Gagliardi , Ken Filiano and Lou Grassi, KenBillou , was also released on CIMP.

Grassi also worked on other albums for CIMP and other labels as an accompanying musician, such as Roswell Rudds Broad Strokes , saxophonist Rob Brown , guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil , Sheila Jordan, the NU Band with Mark Whitecage , David Hofstra , Ursel Schlicht (2002) , Charlie Kohlhase and Gunter Hampel , with whose New York Trio he toured Europe in 2002.

Discographic notes

  • Quick Wits (CIMP, 1996) with Phillip Johnston , David Hofstra
  • Mo'Po (CIMP, 1997) with Herb Robertson, Steve Swell, Perry Robinson, Wilber Morris
  • Neo Neo (CIMP, 1999) with Ron Horton , Tom Varner, Tomas Ulrich
  • PoZest (CIMP, 1999) with Paul Smoker, Steve Swell, Perry Robinson, Marshall Allen, Wilber Morris
  • The Joy of Being (CIMP, 2000) with Joseph Jarman
  • Martin Speicher / Georg Wolf / Lou Grassi: Shapes and Shadows ( Clean Feed Records , 2006)

Lexigraphic entry

swell

Remarks

  1. ↑ On PoGression was with Burton Greene also involved a guest musician.
personal data
SURNAME Grassi, Lou
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grassi, Louis Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Summit (New Jersey)