Lionel Grigson

Lionel Grigson (12 February 1942 – 14 June 1994) was a British jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer and teacher. As Simon Purcell wrote in The Independent, "Whether he inspired or inflamed, Grigson's energies often acted as a catalyst and his interest in, and support for, young jazz musicians contributed significantly to the growth and consolidation of jazz education in Britain....Within the context of a leading international conservatoire, the Guildhall School of Music, in London, Grigson did much to demonstrate and explain the underlying principles common to jazz, classical and indeed all music, and as a result produced a generation of jazz educators possessing a thorough grounding in an area where much educational work is left to chance."

Biography
Lionel Jermyn Grigson, born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was educated at Dartington Hall School and at King's College, Cambridge University. His father was the critic and poet Geoffrey Grigson (Lionel was named after one of his father's brothers who was killed in World War I) and his first wife was the publisher Margaret Busby, co-founder of Allison & Busby.

Music career
Grigson began playing jazz in his early teens at Dartington, and, during the early 1960s was co-leader of the award-winning Cambridge University Jazz Band that included Art Themen and Dave Gelly, among others. In the later 1960s he was resident at The Troubadour coffee house in Old Brompton Road, London, with a regular Sunday afternoon gig, and led his own jazz groups with musicians including John Hart (bass), Pete Burden and Paul Zec (altos), Art Themen and Bobby Wellins (tenors), Spike Wells (drums), Dave Gelly, Mick Pyne and many others. In 1969 the Lionel Grigson-Pete Burden quintet included Tony Levin and Daryl Runswick. Musician and songwriter Tom Norris was among younger musicians who also performed with Grigson.

Grigson was in the original line-up of the jazz rock/fusion group If, and a composition on their second album If 2 (1970) is by Busby/Grigson.

During the early 1970s he led an "Afro-Latin-Jazz group" called Ujamaa, with line-ups that variously included Art Themen, Harry Beckett, John Mumford, Pete Burden, Paul Zec, and singer Jeanette Tavernier, among others. In 1980 he was house pianist at Brighton Jazz Club, and from 1984 to 1987 he was musical director of Ziggy's Jazz Club, a launching ground for new talent in British jazz. Grigson also played with some of the most notable international musicians in jazz, including Freddie Hubbard, Philly Joe Jones, Johnny Griffin and Kenny Clarke.

Grigson was for ten years Professor of Harmony and Improvisation at London's Guildhall School of Music (1983–93) and taught on the school's Postgraduate Diploma Course in Jazz. Notable musicians who studied at the Guildhall School under Grigson's tenure there include Rowland Sutherland, Huw Warren, Steve Williamson, Cleveland Watkiss and others.

Discography

 * 1965: Western Reunion - New Jazz Orchestra: Neil Ardley; Bob Leaper, Mike Phillipson, and Tony Dudley on trumpets; Ian Carr on trumpet and flugelhorn; Mick Palmer on French horn; John Mumford and Paul Rutherford on trombones; Peter Harvey on bass trombone; Dick Hart on tuba; Les Carter on flutes; Trevor Watts on alto sax and flute; Barbara Thompson on alto sax; Dave Gelly and Tom Harris on tenor saxophones; Sebastian Freudenberg on baritone sax; Mike Barrett on piano; Tony Reeves on bass; Jon Hiseman on drums; and Lionel Grigson on piano.

Publications

 * Practical Jazz: Step-by-step Guide to Harmony and Improvisation (Stainer & Bell, 1988)
 * Jazz from Scratch: How to improvise on great jazz classics (Faber, with a foreword by Miles Kington; 1991)
 * A Jazz Chord Book (Jazzwise, 3rd edition 1995)
 * A Charlie Parker Study Album (Novello, 1989)
 * A Louis Armstrong Study Album (Novello, 1992)
 * A Thelonious Monk Study Album (Novello, 1993)
 * Wonders of the World (foreword by Cliff Michelmore; Newnes, 1985)