Veteran guitarist Grant Geissman explores new creative directions and unlimited possibilities of the blues on his 16th album as a leader.
Veteran guitarist/composer Grant Geissman first came to prominence as a member of Chuck Mangione’s band in the 1970s. Since then, he has enjoyed a multi-faceted career, active across several musical styles and genres, including jazz, fusion and instrumental pop. His 16th album, BLOOZ, is a collaboration between his label, Futurism, and Mesa/Bluemoon, the label that released four of his albums in the early 1990s.
Aside from being a more guitar-oriented record than some of his previous projects, BLOOZ features a program offering an original trip through a number of styles, all of which are bluesy in some way. As Geissman himself puts it via an official statement, “The album is called BLOOZ because it is my take on the blues, which might not always be tradition, and actually can have fairly wide interpretation.”
Among its highlights is a Bo Diddley-inspired jazz-rock jam titled “One G and Two J’s,” featuring a three-guitar lineup with Josh Smith and Joe Bonamassa, and all three musicians contributing incendiary solos. Smith and Bonamassa are part of the impressive rotating cast of musicians Geissman assembled for the project. As he recently told Jonathan Widran: “The coolest thing about both my music and book projects is that I’m still lucky enough to be doing them and working with so many amazing creative people.”
Grant Geissman’s BLOOZ is available now. Order it here. To read Jonathan Widran’s article on Geissman from our Winter 2022 issue, click here.
Photo by Loni Specter.
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