Grant Geissman
Encyclopedia
Grant Geissman is a crossover jazz
, contemporary jazz
and new age
guitarist and an Emmy-nominated composer for network TV series and TV movies. An in-demand studio musician, he has recorded extensively for several labels since 1976, and he can be heard playing guitar on the theme for Monk and other TV series.
Geissman was born in Berkeley, California
. Growing up in San Jose, California
, Geissman took guitar lessons from a succession of San Jose musicians, including Geoff Levin (of the pop group People!
) and local jazz favorites Bud Dimock, Don Cirallo and Terry Saunders. Encouraged by these teachers to learn jazz standards and to improvise, he began playing in rock bands on weekends and also with small jazz groups and big bands.
As a high school senior, he entered formal study with avant-garde guitarist Jerry Hahn, who introduced him to the music of Charlie Parker
, Miles Davis
, John Coltrane
and Ornette Coleman
. After graduating from Prospect High School
, Geissman attended De Anza Junior College, where he played in both De Anza's jazz band and the Daddio Band (of older professionals). Both were led by well-known jazz educator Dr. Herb Patnoe, who was the director of Stan Kenton
's Jazz Clinics.
Since the Kenton band at that time had no guitar player, Patnoe recommended Geissman to teach at Kenton's summer clinics in both Sacramento and in Southern California. While teaching at these clinics for several summers, Geissman first met (and played with) drummer Peter Erskine
and pianist Dan Haerle. Relocating to Los Angeles in 1973, Geissman attended one semester at Cal State Fullerton, where he played in the band led by pianist/clarinetist Tom Ranier.
.
Geissman's first gig with fluegelhornist/composer Chuck Mangione
was at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium on November 9, 1976. A short tour of the Pacific Northwest followed, and soon after Mangione asked Geissman to become a permanent member of the band. Mangione's new band included Geissman, Charles Meeks on bass, Chris Vadala on woodwinds and James Bradley, Jr. on drums, and the first album with Mangione's new band was Feels So Good
(1977), which sold two million albums and remains one of the top-selling instrumental albums today. On radio, the single "Feels So Good
", featuring Geissman's now legendary guitar solo, was a huge international hit with many airplays, and a 1980 issue of Current Biography called it the most recognized tune since "Michelle
" by The Beatles
.
In 1978 Geissman released his first album as a leader, "Good Stuff" (Concord Jazz), which featured fellow Northridge alumnus Gordon Goodwin
on sax, Tom Ranier on piano, Bob Magnussen on bass and Steve Shaeffer on drums. Grant left Mangione's band in 1981 to pursue other endeavors, including his own albums, session work and composing.
Geissman has released 13 albums as a leader. Two of his albums (Flying Colors and Time Will Tell) rose to the number one position in the Gavin and Radio and Records Contemporary Jazz airplay charts, and most of his recent recordings have cracked the top ten. He has recorded with such artists as Quincy Jones
(Q's Jook Joint, 1995), Keiko Matsui, 3rd Force, David Benoit, Cheryl Bentyne, Lorraine Feather and Dianne Schur. He also had a guitar solo as a separate track on the Tiffany
album Hold an Old Friend's Hand
.
He was reunited with Mangione in 2000 when they recorded the album Everything for Love (Chesky Records). Geissman's early musical influences came full circle in 2003 when he played Dobro
on Ringo Starr
's Ringorama album. In 2006, he released his 13th album as a leader, Say That!, on his own label, Futurism Records. A throwback to the jazz music that first influenced him, he has described the sound of this album as "Wes Montgomery
meets Horace Silver
meets Jimmy Smith
." John Kelman, in All About Jazz, reviewed:
The Grant Geissman Quintet in 2006 included Brian Scanlon (woodwinds), Emilio Palame (piano), Kevin Axt (acoustic bass) and Ray Brinker (drums). After headlining the Playboy Summerfest at Pasadena's Rose Bowl, the Quintet followed with a debut at Yoshi's jazz club
in Oakland, California
and a performance in the Friday Night Jazz series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
.
, Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin, Phil Donahue, The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Geissman's other albums with Mangione include Children of Sanchez (1978), Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1979) and Fun and Games (1980).
His playing has been heard on numerous TV shows, including Dawson's Creek
, Family Affair
, Boy Meets World
, Touched By an Angel
and Lizzie McGuire
. He can be heard playing the Django
esque acoustic guitar on the theme for the TV series Monk
, starring Tony Shalhoub
. Nominated for a 2001 Emmy for co-writing the song "No Puedo Olvidar" for the daytime drama Passions, he received an Emmy nomination in 2004 for another Passions song, "Momma, Gotta Let Her Go." In 2003, he was nominated for an Annie award for producing Van Dyke Parks
' songs for HBO's Harold and the Purple Crayon. He has written additional music for films and TV movies, including The Ponder Heart (2001), Call Me Claus (2001), Monday Night Mayhem (2002), Die, Mommie, Die! (2003) and The Mojo Cafe (2004). Dennis C. Brown and Geissman collaborated on the underscore for the hit CBS-TV sitcom Two and a Half Men
. The show’s theme, co-written by Geissman, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2004.
magazine and EC Comics
and has written three books on the subject: Collectibly Mad (Kitchen Sink Press, 1995); Tales of Terror! The EC Comics Companion, co-authored with Fred von Bernewitz
(Fantagraphics, 2000); and Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics! (HarperDesign, 2005). He has also compiled and/or written annotations for ten other Mad-related books, and he appears in Chip Selby's documentary, Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television (2004). In 2011, Geissman teamed with Russ Cochran
to launch a publishing company, GC Press, LLC, to continue the hardcover EC Archives
series originally published by Gemstone.
Crossover jazz
In the wake of fusion's decline in the mid-1970s, jazz artists who continued to seek wider audiences began incorporating a variety of popular sounds into their music, forming a group of accessible styles that became known as crossover jazz. Influential saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr...
, contemporary jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
and new age
New Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
guitarist and an Emmy-nominated composer for network TV series and TV movies. An in-demand studio musician, he has recorded extensively for several labels since 1976, and he can be heard playing guitar on the theme for Monk and other TV series.
Geissman was born in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
. Growing up in San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, Geissman took guitar lessons from a succession of San Jose musicians, including Geoff Levin (of the pop group People!
People!
People! was a one-hit wonder rock band that was formed in San Jose, California in 1965. They started out playing "Top 40" music like most artists but ended up releasing three albums of mostly original material. Their greatest chart success came with their summer hit single "I Love You", a song...
) and local jazz favorites Bud Dimock, Don Cirallo and Terry Saunders. Encouraged by these teachers to learn jazz standards and to improvise, he began playing in rock bands on weekends and also with small jazz groups and big bands.
As a high school senior, he entered formal study with avant-garde guitarist Jerry Hahn, who introduced him to the music of Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
. After graduating from Prospect High School
Prospect High School (California)
Prospect High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school of the Campbell Union High School District, located at the intersection of Lawrence Expressway and Prospect Road in the northeastern corner of Saratoga, California, on its border with San Jose. It serves northern Saratoga, the...
, Geissman attended De Anza Junior College, where he played in both De Anza's jazz band and the Daddio Band (of older professionals). Both were led by well-known jazz educator Dr. Herb Patnoe, who was the director of Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
's Jazz Clinics.
Since the Kenton band at that time had no guitar player, Patnoe recommended Geissman to teach at Kenton's summer clinics in both Sacramento and in Southern California. While teaching at these clinics for several summers, Geissman first met (and played with) drummer Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...
and pianist Dan Haerle. Relocating to Los Angeles in 1973, Geissman attended one semester at Cal State Fullerton, where he played in the band led by pianist/clarinetist Tom Ranier.
Recordings
Transferring to Cal State Northridge in 1974 to be closer to the Hollywood studio scene, Geissman joined the Northridge "A" band led by jazz educator Joel Leach. While at Northridge, he began playing in both Gerald Wilson's Big Band and with Louie Bellson's Big Band, recording several albums with Bellson. For Louie Bellson's Live at the Concord Summer Festival, Geissman contributed an original composition, "Starship Concord." He began playing in local jazz joints with Tony Rizzi's guitar band, recording Tony Rizzi's Five Guitars Play Charlie Christian (1976), which featured Tom Ranier and Pete ChristliebPete Christlieb
Pete Christlieb is a jazz bebop, West Coast jazz and hard bop tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Christlieb was born in Los Angeles, California and is the son of bassoonist Don Christlieb...
.
Geissman's first gig with fluegelhornist/composer Chuck Mangione
Chuck Mangione
Charles Frank "Chuck" Mangione is an American flugelhorn player and composer who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." Mangione has released more than thirty albums since 1960.-Early life and career:...
was at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium on November 9, 1976. A short tour of the Pacific Northwest followed, and soon after Mangione asked Geissman to become a permanent member of the band. Mangione's new band included Geissman, Charles Meeks on bass, Chris Vadala on woodwinds and James Bradley, Jr. on drums, and the first album with Mangione's new band was Feels So Good
Feels So Good (Chuck Mangione album)
Feels So Good is a 1977 jazz album released by Chuck Mangione. It contains his hit single, the title song "Feels So Good", which in an edited form reached #4 on the U.S. charts. The song also reached the top of the Billboard adult contemporary chart. It is also frequently referenced on animated TV...
(1977), which sold two million albums and remains one of the top-selling instrumental albums today. On radio, the single "Feels So Good
Feels So Good (Chuck Mangione song)
"Feels So Good" is the title of a 1978 instrumental by the American flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione. It was both written and produced by Mangione and is the title track from his 1977 album....
", featuring Geissman's now legendary guitar solo, was a huge international hit with many airplays, and a 1980 issue of Current Biography called it the most recognized tune since "Michelle
Michelle (song)
"Michelle" is a love ballad by The Beatles, mainly written by Paul McCartney, with the middle eight co-written with John Lennon. It is featured on their Rubber Soul album. The song departs from most of The Beatles' other recordings in that some of the lyrics are in French...
" by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
.
In 1978 Geissman released his first album as a leader, "Good Stuff" (Concord Jazz), which featured fellow Northridge alumnus Gordon Goodwin
Gordon Goodwin
Gordon L. Goodwin is a Grammy award-winning American studio pianist, saxophonist, composer, arranger and conductor. He now lives in Southern California with his wife Lisa, daughter Madison and two sons, Trevor and Garrison.- Early years :...
on sax, Tom Ranier on piano, Bob Magnussen on bass and Steve Shaeffer on drums. Grant left Mangione's band in 1981 to pursue other endeavors, including his own albums, session work and composing.
Geissman has released 13 albums as a leader. Two of his albums (Flying Colors and Time Will Tell) rose to the number one position in the Gavin and Radio and Records Contemporary Jazz airplay charts, and most of his recent recordings have cracked the top ten. He has recorded with such artists as Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
(Q's Jook Joint, 1995), Keiko Matsui, 3rd Force, David Benoit, Cheryl Bentyne, Lorraine Feather and Dianne Schur. He also had a guitar solo as a separate track on the Tiffany
Tiffany (singer)
Tiffany Renee Darwish , known popularly as Tiffany, is an American singer and former teen icon. She is most notable for her 1987 cover version of "I Think We're Alone Now", originally recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells in 1967. Released as the second single from her eponymous album, Tiffany,...
album Hold an Old Friend's Hand
Hold an Old Friend's Hand
-B-sides:*"Can't Stop A Heartbeat" *"I'll Be The Girl" *"Gotta Be Love" *"Ruthless"...
.
He was reunited with Mangione in 2000 when they recorded the album Everything for Love (Chesky Records). Geissman's early musical influences came full circle in 2003 when he played Dobro
Dobro
Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
on Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
's Ringorama album. In 2006, he released his 13th album as a leader, Say That!, on his own label, Futurism Records. A throwback to the jazz music that first influenced him, he has described the sound of this album as "Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
meets Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
meets Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
." John Kelman, in All About Jazz, reviewed:
- It’s a shame that the words smooth jazz have become an oxymoron. Say That!, with its relaxed pace and easy-on-the-ears approach, is as smooth as it gets. But smooth jazz it ain’t. Geissman’s clear roots in the jazz mainstream, and a less-is-more style that reveals greater depth, makes Say That! a welcome return to the fold for a guitarist who’s always deserved more street cred than he’s received.
The Grant Geissman Quintet in 2006 included Brian Scanlon (woodwinds), Emilio Palame (piano), Kevin Axt (acoustic bass) and Ray Brinker (drums). After headlining the Playboy Summerfest at Pasadena's Rose Bowl, the Quintet followed with a debut at Yoshi's jazz club
Yoshi's (jazz club)
Yoshi's is the preeminent jazz club of the San Francisco Bay Area.Started as a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley by Yoshi Akiba, a World War II war orphan, , and her friends Kaz Kajimura and Hiroyuki Hori, the club soon moved to a larger space on Claremont Avenue in Oakland, California and began to...
in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
and a performance in the Friday Night Jazz series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
.
Television
With Mangione, Geissman appeared on many of the major TV/variety shows of the time, including The Tonight ShowThe Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
, Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin, Phil Donahue, The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Geissman's other albums with Mangione include Children of Sanchez (1978), Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1979) and Fun and Games (1980).
His playing has been heard on numerous TV shows, including Dawson's Creek
Dawson's Creek
Dawson's Creek is an American teen drama television series which debuted on January 20, 1998, on The WB Television Network and was produced by Sony Pictures Television. The show is set in the fictional seaside town of Capeside, Massachusetts, and in Boston, Massachusetts, during the later seasons...
, Family Affair
Family Affair
Family Affair is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from September 12, 1966 to September 9, 1971. The series explored the trials of well-to-do civil engineer and bachelor Bill Davis as he attempted to raise his brother's orphaned children in his luxury New York City apartment. Davis' traditional...
, Boy Meets World
Boy Meets World
Boy Meets World is an American comedy-drama series that chronicles the events and everyday life lessons of Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage, a kid from suburban Philadelphia who grows up from a young boy to a married man. The show aired for seven seasons from 1993 to 2000 on ABC, part of the...
, Touched By an Angel
Touched by an Angel
Touched by an Angel is an American drama series that premiered on CBS on September 21, 1994 and ran for 211 episodes and nine seasons until its conclusion on April 27, 2003. Created by John Masius and produced by Martha Williamson, the series stars Roma Downey, as an angel named Monica, and Della...
and Lizzie McGuire
Lizzie McGuire
Lizzie McGuire is an American teen sitcom which premiered on the Disney Channel on January 12, 2001 and ended February 14, 2004. A total of 65 episodes were produced and aired. Its target demographic was preteens and adolescents...
. He can be heard playing the Django
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
esque acoustic guitar on the theme for the TV series Monk
Monk (TV series)
Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...
, starring Tony Shalhoub
Tony Shalhoub
Anthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub is an American actor of Lebanese descent. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in Monk...
. Nominated for a 2001 Emmy for co-writing the song "No Puedo Olvidar" for the daytime drama Passions, he received an Emmy nomination in 2004 for another Passions song, "Momma, Gotta Let Her Go." In 2003, he was nominated for an Annie award for producing Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks
Van Dyke Parks is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer, author and actor. Parks is perhaps best known for his contributions as a lyricist on the Beach Boys album Smile....
' songs for HBO's Harold and the Purple Crayon. He has written additional music for films and TV movies, including The Ponder Heart (2001), Call Me Claus (2001), Monday Night Mayhem (2002), Die, Mommie, Die! (2003) and The Mojo Cafe (2004). Dennis C. Brown and Geissman collaborated on the underscore for the hit CBS-TV sitcom Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
. The show’s theme, co-written by Geissman, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2004.
Books
Apart from his musical career, Geissman is an authority on MadMad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
magazine and EC Comics
EC Comics
Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books specializing in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series...
and has written three books on the subject: Collectibly Mad (Kitchen Sink Press, 1995); Tales of Terror! The EC Comics Companion, co-authored with Fred von Bernewitz
Fred von Bernewitz
Fred von Bernewitz is a film editor, currently with HBO. His work in film editing over four decades ranges from TV commercials to features, including several Robert Downey, Sr...
(Fantagraphics, 2000); and Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics! (HarperDesign, 2005). He has also compiled and/or written annotations for ten other Mad-related books, and he appears in Chip Selby's documentary, Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television (2004). In 2011, Geissman teamed with Russ Cochran
Russ Cochran
Russell Earl Cochran is an American professional golfer on the Champions Tour who has played on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour. He is one of eight left-handed players to win a PGA Tour event....
to launch a publishing company, GC Press, LLC, to continue the hardcover EC Archives
EC Archives
The EC Archives are a series of American hardcover collections of full-color comic book reprints of EC Comics, published by Russ Cochran and Gemstone Publishing from 2006 to 2008....
series originally published by Gemstone.
Recordings as a leader
- Good Stuff (Concord Jazz, 1978)
- Put Away Childish Toys (Pausa, 1983)
- Drinkin' from the Money River (TBA, 1986)
- Snapshots (TBA, 1987)
- All My Tomorrows (TBA, 1988)
- Take Another Look (Mesa/Bluemoon, 1989)
- Flying Colors (Mesa/Bluemoon, 1990)
- Reruns (Mesa/Bluemoon, 1991)
- Time Will Tell (Mesa/Bluemoon, 1992)
- Rustic Technology (Mesa/Bluemoon, 1993)
- Business As Usual (Positive Music, 1995)
- In with the Out Crowd (Higher Octave Music, 1998)
- Say That! (Futurism, 2006)
- Cool Man Cool (Futurism, 2009)