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Carl Grubbs

Carl Grubbs performs on alto, soprano and tenor saxophones and clarinet. He is an accomplished composer, educator and performing artist. A native of Philadelphia, he received early extensive training from John Coltrane and his brother Earl Grubbs.​ The Carl Grubbs Ensemble performs his original compositions and jazz standards in cities in the U.S. They have performed at jazz festivals in Bogota and Medellin, Columbia, S.A. and most recently an eight-city tour of Brazil.

Through his family, Carl Grubbs was close to many of the history-making musicians of the 1950’s and 1960’s. With his brother, Earl Grubbs, he formed The Visitors, a quintet that recorded four albums for the Muse record label.

Mr. Grubbs is a former member of the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet.  This group toured the U.S. and Europe performing two productions: Hemphill’s Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera and Bill T. Jones/Arne Zane Production: Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land.

Mr. Grubbs was a guest soloist at the Philadelphia performance of Reggie Workman’s project, African Brass, A Tribute to John Coltrane. He has performed with Odean Pope’s Saxophone Choir at the Blue Note in New York City. The Philadelphia Jazz Project (The Painted Bride) commissioned a new arrangement of his composition “In My Youth” for jazz/string ensemble for inclusion in its annual “Frosty 2” event.

Mr. Grubbs is co-founder and Artistic Director of Contemporary Arts Inc. a nonprofit arts organization. The organization’s jazz programs provide music and dance education for youth ages 4-17, jazz concerts at senior centers and concerts for general audiences. Carl Grubbs is a member of the MSAC Arts in Education Artist Roster.

Mr. Grubbs has received numerous awards in recognition of his work. He has twice been the recipient of the MSAC Traditions award as a jazz master, working with apprentices to pass on the traditions of improvised jazz music. His organization, Contemporary Arts Inc. received a 2009 MSAC Traditions Project grant that culminated in his collaboration with Lafayette Gilchrist in a CD of the music of Marylanders who made significant contributions to the art form of jazz. In 2009, Mr. Grubbs received the Mary Sawyers Baker Award from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund. In 2014, he was awarded a Rubys Project Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, founded by the Deutsch Foundation. His Rubys Project Grant enabled him to revise and expand his original work, The Inner Harbor Suite Revisited: A Tribute to Baltimore for Jazz/String Ensemble.

Awards

2009 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize

2009 Rosa Pryor Scholarship Fund

2009 Baltimore Magazine – Best Jazz Musician

1995 Baltimore Magazine – Best Jazz CD

1987 – National Endowment for the Arts – Performance grant for the DC Jazz Workshop Orchestra

1983 – National Endowment for the Arts/Rouse Company & Harborplace Merchants Association – Performance grant for Concerts and Workshops at the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD Affiliations: Chamber Music America, AFM – Musician Union, BMI

Gear

Selmer saxopones - Alto Yamaha - Soprano sax Selmer saxophone - Tenor


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4
Jazzmatazz

Remembering Saxophonist, teacher, and composer Carl Grubbs

Read "Remembering Saxophonist, teacher, and composer Carl Grubbs" reviewed by Matt Hooke


Saxophonist Carl Grubbs built a community around him everywhere he played, whether in 1970s jny: Philadelphia where people gathered outside of his house to listen to his band practice, or in jny: Baltimore where he mentored countless generations of musicians since the 1990s. Even as his health worsened over the past year, Grubbs continued to see students, determined to make sure jazz continued to the next generation. “How else can the music live," his wife of ...

119
Album Review

Carl Grubbs 4tet: Stepping Around the Giant

Read "Stepping Around the Giant" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Carl Grubbs is living, breathing proof of the adage “live isn’t fair.” Like so many of his peers, he’s largely fallen through the cracks over the years- a casualty of the public ambivalence that usually signals the lot of creative improvising musicians. But it wasn’t always so; back in the early Seventies with his brother Earl he made a valiant push for the big time through a contract on the Muse label. Three records later the debilitating weight of commerical ...

13
Profile

Carl Grubbs

Read "Carl Grubbs" reviewed by Robert Spencer


Carl Grubbs is an alto and soprano saxophonist from jny: Philadelphia with a singularly distinctive family tree: his cousin is Naima herself, who as John Coltrane's wife inspired one of the most beautiful ballads in jazz. Coltrane was close to Carl's section of the family, and he was quick to teach Carl a thing or two on the saxophone. It shows. Carl Grubbs is a great saxophonist who has played with some of the greatest players ...

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