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Grant Geissman

Guitarist/composer Grant Geissman is a popular Contemporary Jazz recording artist, with sixteen albums released under his own name. Grant’s latest project, BLOOZ, marks a return to a partnership with the Mesa/Bluemoon label, which released a number of Grant’s albums in the early 1990s.

Other recent albums include BOP! BANG! BOOM!, which completes a trilogy of jazz albums released on Grant’s own label, Futurism Records. BOP! BANG! BOOM! is a powerfully eclectic recording that features special guests including Tom Scott, Larry Carlton, Albert Lee, Russell Ferrante, Mike Finnegan, Leland Sklar and Van Dyke Parks.

The second in the trilogy, Cool Man Cool, features “cool music I like to play, cool people I like to play with,” including special guests Chick Corea, Chuck Mangione, Tom Scott, Jerry Hahn, Russell Ferrante, Patrice Rushen, Mike Finnigan, and Van Dyke Parks. His previous project, Say That!, marked his return to “real” (not Smooth) jazz, and contains thirteen original Grant Geissman compositions that play like a righteous melding of 1960s Wes Montgomery, Horace Silver, and Jimmy Smith. Jazz critic Bill Milkowski wrote that “Say That! is an iron fist upside the mushy head of smooth jazz, and Grant Geissman's defiant declaration of independence.”

Geissman also co-wrote the music for all twelve seasons of the hit CBS-TV series Two and a Half Men, for all six seasons of hit CBS-TV series Mike & Molly, and for the first season of the short-lived CBS-TV series B Positive. He has also contributed specialty music for a number of other TV shows, including The Big Bang Theory and Mom.

As a studio guitarist he has recorded with such artists as Quincy Jones, Steve Tyrell, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, Chuck Mangione (playing the now-legendary guitar solo on Chuck's 1978 hit “Feels So Good”), Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson, Inara George, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Paula Abdul, Ringo Starr, Keiko Matsui, David Benoit, Placido Domingo, Luis Miguel, and Julio Iglesias. He has also played on the scores for such TV shows as Monk (playing the Django Reinhardt-style acoustic guitar solo on the theme), Mad Men, and Dawson's Creek. He has played on the scores to films like Because I Said So (starring Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore), Minions, Austin Powers/The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Majestic, and Anaconda.

With the legendary, eclectic musician/composer Van Dyke Parks, Geissman has worked on Parks’s solo recording projects, and on music for the HBO children's program Harold and the Purple Crayon, for which Parks and Geissman were nominated for an Annie Award.

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Liner Notes

Lorraine Feather's Language Turns A Witty Phrase

Read "Lorraine Feather's Language Turns A Witty Phrase" reviewed by Ken Dryden


I got to know Lorraine Feather through reviewing several of her CDs, amazed by her gifts as a lyricist and singer, who was equally at home with witty songs and tender ballads. I first met Lorraine when she was performing at the late lamented Manhattan club Danny's Skylight Room with pianist Shelly Berg. We would chat during IAJE conferences and I was delighted when she invited me to write the liner notes for this CD. This release stands the test ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Grant Geissman, Nicholas Payton and Art Blakey

Read "Grant Geissman, Nicholas Payton and Art Blakey" reviewed by Joe Dimino


We begin the 779th Episode of Neon Jazz with a tune from guitarist Grant Geissman's new album Blooz. From there, we hear from one of his early mentors in Chuck Mangione. We get a bit of Chicago flair from singer Tracye Eileen and the great King Oliver. As the episode marches on, we hear new music from Andres Vial, Jason Yeager and Kansas City Guitarist Brian Baggett live at the Green Lady Lounge. We wrap all of the up with ...

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Album Review

Grant Geissman: Blooz

Read "Blooz" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


There are several ways of judging the success of a recording. Perhaps a hearing makes the listener, if a musician, want to sit in and jam. That is a good sign. Then there is the “sit still test." For many, the direct, emotional and physical connection between music and brain leaves them simply hanging out, absence of motion impossible, sitting still not an option. Grant Geissman's Blooz happily passes both tests. Turn the volume up and a blues party comes ...

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Album Review

Beverley Church Hogan: Sweet Invitation

Read "Sweet Invitation" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


In 1984, an American writer named Harriet Doerr published a compelling novel called Stones for Ibarra (Penguin Books). The novel, partly autobiographical, was about rural Mexico. Ms. Doerr's novel was her first. It won a National Book Award. Doerr had attended university for a bit but dropped out to raise a family. She was 74 years old when the book was published. Of course, there was a small sensation, because few of us break into print in our ...

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Album Review

Beverley Church Hogan: Sweet Invitation

Read "Sweet Invitation" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


The entertainment business only rarely offers second chances. However, that does seem to be the case for singer Beverley Church Hogan. Born and raised in Montreal, Canada, she began singing as a pre-teen, managed to have a regular gig on the radio and then, by her late teens, was singing in clubs and U.S.O. styled military shows. At 21, she relocated to Los Angeles, was offered a recording contract by Capitol Records but, for a variety of familial reasons, turned ...

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Album Review

Mark Winkler: Late Bloomin' Jazzman

Read "Late Bloomin' Jazzman" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Veteran singer, platinum-selling lyricist and songwriter Mark Winkler delivers his twentieth album as leader, Late Bloomin' Jazzman, beginning with a George Gershwin standard, ending with a Gershwin tribute and, in between, presenting romantic ballads, a bit of swing and a touch of bossa. An educator at UCLA who teaches the art of songwriting, Winkler brings this remarkable talent to the fore on this album, providing his own lyrics to seven of the twelve songs which he suddenly realized “talk about ...

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Album Review

Mark Winkler: Late Bloomin' Jazzman

Read "Late Bloomin' Jazzman" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


Anyone who can hold their own on a stage on in a studio with Cheryl Bentyne cannot be all bad, right? Even if one's taste runs more to Harry Connick, Jr than to Mark Murphy, it is difficult not to get seriously into Mark Winkler. Oh, he can sing, for sure, but even if he could not carry a tune, he is a lyricist for the ages. Not all ages, mind you. But for those of a certain age, sensibility, ...

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Book / Magazine

Grant Geissman's New Book Feldstein: The Mad Life And Fantastic Art Of Al Feldstein

Grant Geissman's New Book Feldstein: The Mad Life And Fantastic Art Of Al Feldstein

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

In the opinion of many comic book aficionados, the greatest comics ever created were those published in the 1950s by Bill Gaines at EC Comics. Gaines’s creative right-hand man at EC was Al Feldstein, a triple threat artist/writer/editor. And after EC was forced by various guardians of morality to drop their comics in the mid-1950s, Feldstein shepherded MAD Magazine into a cultural icon. Here is the entire life and career of this amazing creator, with insightful biographical text by EC ...

Recording

Guitarist Grant Geissman's "Bop! Bang! Boom!" - July 17 Release On Futurism Records

Guitarist Grant Geissman's "Bop! Bang! Boom!" -  July 17 Release On Futurism Records

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

Eclectic new music from jazz guitarist/composer Grant Geissman, with special guests, including Albert Lee, Larry Carlton, Mike Finnigan, Russell Ferrante, Leland Sklar, and Van Dyke Parks. “From loping funk to boogaloo to earthy blues shuffles, with a haunting ballad, a beautiful samba and an urgently swinging post-bop romp thrown into the mix—along with touches of classical, flamenco and zydeco—he covers all the bases with authority on BOP! BANG! BOOM!” —from the liner notes by Bill Milkowski Non-musical highlights include original ...

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Recording

Guitarist Grant Geissman's New CD, "Cool Man Cool"

Guitarist Grant Geissman's New CD, "Cool Man Cool"

Source: Michael Bloom Media Relations

Grant Geissman Cool Man Cool April 21 Release Futurism Records 2054 After a long flirtation with smooth jazz, guitarist Grant Geissman went back to his jazzy roots and came up with the most personally satisfying statement of his career in 2006’s Say That!, his paean to the golden era of Blue Note-Riverside-Verve with obvious nods to the likes of Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver and Jimmy Smith. For his follow-up, Geissman reveals a ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

My Story In Song

Herron Song Records
2023

buy

Late Bloomin' Jazzman

Cafe Pacific Records
2022

buy

Sweet Invitation

Cafe Pacific Records
2022

buy

Blooz

MESA/Bluemoon
2022

buy

Bop! Bang! Boom!

Futurism Records
2012

buy

Cool Man Cool

Futurism Records
2009

buy

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