::: GRANT GEISSMAN :::


Tribute to cartoonist JACK DAVIS! I was fortunate enough to attend the CAPS (Comic Artists Professional Society) dinner honoring the legendary MAD magazine cartoonist Jack Davis. Jack received a lifetime achievement award (called the "Sergio" after fellow MAD cartoonist—and fellow legend!—Sergio Aragones). Sergio was also given an award at the same event. Here are some pictures, including a shot of me at the event with Jack Davis and Sergio Aragones. Jack Davis's art and career is featured in my book FOUL PLAY! Click on "Book Projects" above for more information about the book! Jack Davis, Grant Geissman, and Sergio Aragones Sergio and Jack, with the "Sergio" Award SAY THAT! Legendary guitarist Grant Geissman has thrown down the gauntlet that separates the Jazz men from the Smooth Jazz boys! Say That! is a triumph, a collection of thirteen original Grant Geissman compositions that play like a righteous melding of 1960s Wes Montgomery, Horace Silver, and Jimmy Smith. It's real music that swings, simmers, smolders, and burns. It's good for the soul, and anything but "smooth"! "Say That! is an iron fist upside the mushy head of smooth jazz, and Grant Geissman's defiant declaration of independence." --Bill Milkowski *Avaliable at fine record stores, or online from retailers like www.amazon.com. For more information about "SAY THAT!," go to the "Solo CDs" link at the top of the page!* Grant Geissman makes the cover of JazzWeek!Th Feature interview about Say That! and the sad state of smooth jazz... The January 30, 2006 issue of JazzWeek, a radio industry publication that goes out to jazz and smooth jazz radio stations and other interested parties, carried a long feature interview with Grant about the Say That! album, and the sad state of smooth jazz. Here is a blurb about that issue of JazzWeek: "Grant Geissman has been outspoken about his disdain for the direction smooth jazz radio has taken, and the guitarist has taken a much different tack on his latest album. Music Editor Tad Hendrickson catches up with Grant for a frank discussion." TWO AND A HALF MEN I am very pleased and proud to be working on the hit CBS sitcom TWO AND A HALF MEN. The show has just finished its fifth season, and is going strong! I co-wrote the theme ("Men, men, men, men, manly men"!) with my old friend Lee Aronsohn and my new friend Chuck Lorre. (We were nominated for an Emmy award for this theme.) My other new friend Dennis C. Brown and I are working together on the underscore, and we're having a total blast! It's a very cool show with an incredible cast, and it's very, very funny. The show airs Monday nights on CBS at 9:00 PM, and is now in syndication as well. Be sure to tune in!
ABOUT GRANT GEISSMAN: Grant Geissman is a world class guitarist/composer who, as a much in-demand studio musician, has recorded with such artists as Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson (Orange Crate Art, 1995), Robbie Williams (Escapeology, 2003), Quincy Jones (Q's Jook Joint, 1995), David Benoit, Chuck Mangione, Placido Domingo, Luis Miguel, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello. A popular contemporary jazz recording artist in his own right, Grant has recorded thirteen solo albums, the latest being Say That! on Futurism Records (released on January 10, 2006). Something of a renaissance man, Grant is also a very active session musician and composer in Los Angeles, as well as a published author. Click on the links above for more information!
Grant Geissman's "FEELS SO GOOD" guitar solo! It is enormously gratifying to me that, even now, hardly a week goes by that someone doesn't mention the guitar solo I played on Chuck Mangione's 1978 hit "Feels So Good." I've had people tell me that it made such an impression on them that they vividly remember where they were when they first heard it. Certainly "the solo" has taken on a life of its own. In answer to numerous requests, here is my transcription which I did not long after the record was released. This is the complete album version. The single that was played on the radio was an edited version that married the first half of me playing the melody with the second half of my solo. And oddly, one of the radio versions was sped up a half step so the record would clock in at a shorter, more radio-friendly playing time; the original version is in the key of F. One question that always comes up is "How did you do it? Was it improvised in one take, or what?" The answer isn't quite so simple. We went into the studio and did demos of most of the songs on the "Feels So Good" album, just experimenting with the material and trying things out. Then we went on the road for several weeks, all the while listening over and over to those demos, and playing the tunes at night. By the time we got back into the studio to do the final recording, the band was on fire! On several tunes (including "Feels So Good") we had all gotten so into what we had played on the demos that most of us relearned the solos we had previously improvised, and replayed those solos on the final takes. I fixed up a few things I didn't like in my demo solo, and there still were a couple of bars that I didn't have finalized (I improvised something in the studio for those bars on the final take), and that was it. So the final "Feels So Good" solo is actually a combination of improvisation and composition. Practice away!	Click Here to Download (2.9M PDF)