LISTEN - Classical
March 2024: Composition Award | Voices 1 - for piano and electronics | Electronic Masters Vol. 10 - audio excerpt
Recital excerpts
Live Recordings
Recital Tracks
Here are a few samples of live recordings representing recital repertoire performed in Los Angeles.
Recitals are a particularly unique platform for performing in an intimate setting. In this environment the listener can experience a body of diverse music literature representing different musical and cultural practices, and as well, a variety of compositional points of departure. The music literature can at times be bold, intense, simple, serene, complex, beautiful, disquieting, full of a wide range of colors, and encompassing a number of influences that produce a wonderfully powerful sound world.
I have always loved recital literature, and especially of course for the wind instruments I perform on and teach: saxophone, clarinet, and flute. As an extension of the chamber solo literature for these instruments, I have an equal attraction and love for chamber music both of like instruments and mixed instruments that can employ anywhere from three to fifteen instruments.
Recitals are demanding for the performers and require a particular dedication, but well worth the effort. They are a beautiful and unique musical platform for the listener to experience great literature.
Duo for Clarinets - Christopher J. Greco
LISTEN - Jazz
GWSFOURWINDS RECORDS 1994 -
Jazz Tracks
Here are recordings representing my interests with different points of departure in jazz-based music during a wonderfully fruitful period in Los Angeles. The result was the Los Angeles triptych of gwsfourwinds recordings: Trane of Thought, Standards, Vol. 1, and Pleiadian Call / Music for Trio.
These recording projects each represent a different direction in jazz-based music that I explored and recorded during the 1990’s in Los Angeles. The three projects form a triptych, and each project depicts a different direction, a variant on a unifying theme of three interlocking presentations of multi-genre jazz styles. The three projects belong together in this first triptych from gwsfourwinds records: music from Los Angeles, 1990’s.
Pleiadian Call / Music for Trio
“Everything is perfect here. What I enjoyed the most about this brilliant CD is the perfect balance of rules, the many and carefully written passages, and the sheer improvisation.”
Standards, Vol. 1
“Standards Vol. 1, y’all, is the sort of crazy, too hip, freaky, whoa-listen-to-THAT, jazz-plus material that got me so hip to the world class jazz hipsters way back when I was discovering..... Greco interprets classic jazz numbers in a way that makes you think he wrote ‘em, and he grabs straight-ahead by the throat, jumps on its back and makes it dance, which is EXACTLY what ears like mine are forever athirst for.”
Trane of Thought
“Greco is certainly a virtuoso that is not afraid to occasionally break the mold and he shows that his skills and interests make him perfectly suited for stretching the jazz fabric in all the right places. The group stays within the mainstream language enough for even the hardest boppers to follow, all the while mixing things up with modern rhythms and harmonic and melodic colors. The result is an album that blazes its own unique path, while still acknowledging the past and spotlighting music for a new generation.”
MEDIA LINKS
Europe Jazz Network Portal | Chris Greco
Pleiadian Call / Music for Trio | Featured Article AAJ
Pleiadian Call / Music for Trio | AAJ Review “Brilliant Album”
Pleiadian Call / Music for Trio | Jazz Improv Vol. 4, No. 3 “Evocative”
Standards, Vol. 1 | Acousticmusic Review
Standards, Vol. 1 | Improvijazzation Issue 148 “Highly Recommended”
Trane of Thought | Acousticmusic Review
Trane of Thought | Five Star Review
Video
“Mid-City Funk” (Pleiadian Music) 1991 | Chris Greco Quartet - Los Angeles
“Composition coexists comfortably with improvisation in the context of this trio effort by Chris Greco. His expositon-heavy liner notes detail the structural particulars, but the true virtues of his approach manifest most convincingly in the music. While the program has an intellectual atmosphere that makes the label of chamber Jazz tempting, Greco and his partners make it clear that they won’t be codified so easily; Greco cycles routinely through his reeds and winds, and when he’s engaging his partners in improvisation the academic trappings fall away and an infectious passion reveals itself. ”
APPLE MUSIC
