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Greg Kelley

Greg Kelley began studying the trumpet at age 10. He attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, where in addition to studying the Conservatory curriculum, he also immersed himself in a deep study of avant- garde and experimental music, eventually coming to the conclusion that his musical focus fell outside of the academic sphere. After his studies, Kelley moved back to his native Massachusetts, quickly insinuated himself into the local avant-garde circles and soon commenced a period of intense travel and collaboration, bringing him across the United States, throughout Europe, Japan and South America.

He has appeared on over 60 albums and despite a more limited travel schedule, he still manages to play in a number of groups including Nmperign (as abstract improvisatory duo and as horn section for ex-Galaxie 500-ers Damon & Naomi), Heathen Shame, the undr quartet and the BSC, among others.

Other collaborators have included Jandek, Keiji Haino, Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Anthony Braxton, Kevin Drumm, Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Joe McPhee and Lionel Marchetti. In addition to playing the trumpet,

Kelley has also recorded music using electronics and musique concrete elements, sometimes utilizing trumpet based sound sources, other times not.

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1,181
Interview

Greg Kelley: Flesh to Metal

Read "Greg Kelley: Flesh to Metal" reviewed by Gordon Marshall


Boston trumpeter Greg Kelley takes an atom and constructs a world out of it. Taking his cue from the metallic tubes of his instrument and how they are connected to his mouth, and ultimately his body, his sounds are never wholly disembodied but rather maintain the precise quality of that apparatus that, in his hands, is a physical/technological continuum.

Or something--efforts to characterize his art are bound to fail, turning back on themselves with the fatal realization that the only ...

696
Interview

A Fireside Chat With Greg Kelley

Read "A Fireside Chat With Greg Kelley" reviewed by AAJ Staff


If the music is to move forward, it will move forward on the wings of warriors like Greg Kelley. Kelley is not a trend or a term or a magazine cover. Kelley is however, a player and I dig players. Kelley's trumpet is not for everyone. But neither was Ayler and neither is Braxton. But that doesn't take away from his ability to challenge the listener, convention, and stretch the envelope. If you have never heard of Kelley, allow me ...

138
Album Review

Greg Kelley: If I Never Meet You In This Life, Let Me feel The Lack

Read "If I Never Meet You In This Life, Let Me feel The Lack" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Trumpeter Greg Kelley is known for his modernistic excursions within various improvisational circles. With this solo outing, the artist does not rummage through anything that adheres to the straight, narrow or even free-jazz zones. This, my friends is an entirely different ball of wax. Here, Kelley explores the guts of his horn via multiphonics, upper register hissing sounds and otherworldly tonalities. Curiously strange yet undeniably fascinating, Kelley intermixes dark, ambient tones with mechanistic phrasings. At times, he conjures up effects ...

152
Album Review

Greg Kelley: Trumpet

Read "Trumpet" reviewed by Derek Taylor


One of the most useful and elementary devices available to critics is the comparison of a given musical work to what has come before. But what if the music in question has no precedent in the critic’s knowledge base? The closest referent I can come up with for Trumpet is Side Two of Sun Ra’s My Brother the Wind, Volume 2, but even this correlation is hopelessly deficient. On that record Ra experimented with the myriad sounds attainable through the ...

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102

Interview

Trumpeter Greg Kelley Interviewed at AAJ

Trumpeter Greg Kelley Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Boston trumpeter Greg Kelley takes an atom and constructs a world out of it. Taking his cue from the metallic tubes of his instrument and how they are connected to his mouth, and ultimately his body, his sounds are never wholly disembodied but rather maintain the precise quality of that apparatus that, in his hands, is a physical/technological continuum.

Or something--efforts to characterize his art are bound to fail, turning back on themselves with the fatal realization that the only ...

"Kelley takes an atom and constructs a world out of it...[He] is one of the great originators...no one before him has so unashamedly fused flesh to metal."

--Gordon Marshall, All About Jazz

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