Greg Spero is a pianist, composer, producer and educator from Los Angeles. He will be returning to Ronnie Scott’s, this time joined by the London version of his jazz fusion group Spirit Fingers featuring Lox (drums), Ben Glasser (guitar), and Matt May (bass).
UKJazz News: How did Spirit Fingers get going?
Greg Spero: I’ve been a jazz player for my whole life. For 4 years, I took the position as pianist and sound designer for the pop artist Halsey, and supported her rise to fame. It was about halfway through my tenure with the group that I began to go insane playing 3-chord songs night after night. My mind needed more stimulation, more exercise, more excitement, something deeper than what I was playing constantly.
It was during our tour of the UK, when the band would go out partying after our shows, that I would go back to the double-decker tour bus, and turn the top lobby into my studio where I would compose music that would twist my brain inside out. I experimented with various complex time signatures, harmonic structures and counterpoint. The result would take my mind on a journey and break me free of the mundanity of pop music.
UKJN: Who is Spirit Fingers for?
GS: As I began expanding the Spirit Fingers repertoire, I found the only players that I thought would be able to execute it effectively at the time; Mike Mitchell and Hadrien Feraud. All the subsequent music was written with them in mind, so you could say I wrote it for the players. But I also wrote it for myself, to give my mind the thing it was craving; deep complex music strongly rooted in the basic tenets of musicality.
UKJN: Tell me more about the Spirit Fingers London Crew.
GS: When Lox was 18 years old, he saw the original Spirit Fingers perform at Ronnie Scott’s. He was so inspired by Mike Mitchell’s performance of the material, that he ended up learning the material himself, and adopting some of the core aspects of the material in his own creative output. 8 years later, Lox was the first and obvious choice when putting together Spirit Fingers London Crew, along with other great young players who had similar experiences with the material, including Ben Glasser and Matt May. This is London’s next generation of instrumental superstars and I’m so excited to have them as part of the project.
UKJN: What are the main things going on for you musically right now?
GS: I’ve been releasing a single every Friday for the past 2 years now, often with some incredible collaborators. Some of my most popular works are with MonoNeon and Ronald Bruner Jr, some with legendary drummer Harvey Mason, and most recently some with incredible up-and-coming sax player Nicole McCabe. I’ve made it a point to keep producing new works, no matter what else is going on in my life, and that grounding in musical productivity is what has kept me happy and healthy.
UKJN: By all accounts you have always been very entrepreneurial. How do you balance your various ventures with your piano playing?
GS: Everything I am building is centred around two words: EMPOWER CREATIVITY. I’ve built a members club for artists in LA called The Recording Club, where an artist can have everything he/she needs for a well balanced healthy creative lifestyle. We have top-tier recording facilities, a robust health/wellness center, and a community of like-minded passionate creative people.
My technology company, Artist AI, is an AI-based artist management system, with the vision of allowing every artist to focus on their art, while offloading all the mundane and non-artistic tasks to an AI system to deliver their art effectively into the world. It has worked for me, and we’ve had 160 AI-powered releases for other artists so far in our beta platform.
If what I’m doing is not enabling myself and people around me to be more creative, then I eventually catch and change it. Every day, I make it a point to practice the piano, and both of my businesses are built around giving me and the people around me more time and capability to play and record music and produce creative output.
UKJN: What would you say to someone who was about to listen to Spirit Fingers for the first time?
GS: Don’t try to analyse it. It might be some of the most complicated music you’ve heard, but its depth is not in its complexity. I explain this at masterclasses all over the world; the complexity is a landscape but the expression is simple. So don’t think too hard about it – just listen and allow your consciousness to fuse with the music!!
Last time Spero played in the UK, it was for a pop-up concert organised by Jazz Re:freshed with just a week’s notice – and 200 people showed up. When remarking on the impromptu nature of the show, UKJN said “It makes you wonder what they could achieve with more time.” Well, now here we are with days to go until Spirit Fingers (London Crew) play Ronnies Scott’s and you can be sure it will be something to look forward to.
