Greg Osby

Greg Osby (born August 3, 1960) is an American jazz saxophonist who plays mainly in the free jazz, free funk and M-Base idioms.

Biography

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Osby studied at Howard University, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music, with Andy McGhee. He played on Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition, and has recorded with Steve Coleman, Jim Hall and Andrew Hill (setting the stage for Hill and Hall's later appearance on Osby's The Invisible Hand).

He began recording albums under his own name for JMT Records in the 1980s, but his most celebrated work has been a run of records for Blue Note. Like Coleman, Osby likes to discover fresh talent and give players a chance to grow within his own band: he was responsible for giving exposure to the young pianist Jason Moran, who appeared on most of Osby's 1990s albums (including the live album Banned in New York and an experiment with adding a string quartet to the band, Symbols of Light).

Osby has contributed to the homages to Miles Davis's 1970s electric jazz performed by Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith's "Yo Miles" group. The Village Voice critic Francis Davis wrote of his contribution to their double album Upriver, "Greg Osby superimposes his own brand of rhythmic complexity (one fully worthy of Wayne Shorter) on the rhythm section's static vamps every time he steps forward."

In 2003 Osby toured with The Dead, which was a reincarnation of The Grateful Dead for a full North American tour. He also has contributed in various lineups with Phil Lesh and Friends.

Since 2007, Greg has been an active endorser of P. Mauriat Saxophones, playing a 67R DK alto and a System 76 DK soprano. He was featured in a series of magazine ads in Down Beat, JazzTimes and Saxophone Journal in early 2009. He is currently on faculty in the Ensemble Department at Berklee College of Music.

Greg was named Playboy Magazine's "Jazz Artist of the Year" in the March 2009 issue.

Discography

As leader

Title	Recorded	Released	Label	Notes
Greg Osby and Sound Theatre	05-06/1987 (*)	1987	JMT
Mindgames	05/1988	1988	JMT
Season of Renewal	07/1989	1989	JMT
Man-Talk For Moderns Vol. X	10-11/1990	1991	Blue Note
3-D Lifestyles		1993	Blue Note
Black Book		1995	Blue Note
Art Forum		1996	Blue Note
Further Ado		1997	Blue Note
Zero	01/1998	1998	Blue Note
Banned in New York		1998	Blue Note	Live
Friendly Fire	12/1998	1999	Blue Note	with Joe Lovano
New Directions	05/1999	2000	Blue Note	with Stefon Harris, Jason Moran, Mark Shim
The Invisible Hand	09/1999	2000	Blue Note	With Gary Thomas, Andrew Hill, Jim Hall, Scott Colley, Terri Lyne Carrington
Symbols of Light (A Solution)	01/2001	2001	Blue Note
Inner Circle	04/1999	2002	Blue Note
St. Louis Shoes	01/2003	2003	Blue Note
Public	01/2004	2004	Blue Note	Live
Channel Three	02/2005	2005	Blue Note
9 Levels	08/2008	2008	Inner Circle Music

with Uri Caine

• The Goldberg Variations (Winter & Winter, 2000)

with Steve Coleman

• Cipher Syntax (JMT, 1989) as Strata Institute
• Drop Kick (Novus, 1992)

with Robin Eubanks

• Karma (JMT, 1991)

with Gary Thomas

• By Any Means Necessary (JMT, 1989)
• Pariah's Pariah (Winter & Winter, 1998)

with CL Smooth

• "Raise" (1993)

External links

• Greg Osby – official site
• Greg Osby discography at Discogs
• Greg Osby discography at JazzDiscography.com
• Greg Osby at Blue Note Records
• Greg Osby interview with Ted Panken at Jazz.com