Steve Grossman – 18/1/1951-13/8/2020

Though nowhere near as celebrated as he should have been, Steve Grossman’s adventurous early work with Miles Davis and especially Elvin Jones would have been sufficient to mark him out, while his continuing development as a soloist made him a worthy contributor to the tradition. 

Born in Brooklyn, Grossman came from a musical family and, as a teenager, formed an Adderley-style group The Uniques with his brothers, beginning on alto and graduating to tenor and soprano.  He was studying at the Juilliard School when, before his 19th birthday, he recorded with the new Miles band and then replaced the departing Wayne Shorter on the albums A Tribute To Jack Johnson, At Fillmore and Black Beauty. 

There he was heard exclusively on soprano but, staying only a few months, he was then even more impressive on tenor when he joined Elvin Jones’s group with Gene Perla on bass and fellow saxophonist Dave Liebman, who was lavish in his praise of Grossman (check out Elvin’s Live At The Lighthouse).  Also working with Perla’s group Stone Alliance, he did his own LPs Some Shapes To Come and Terra Firma with its members Don Alias and Jan Hammer.

As with others of his generation, all this early work was heavily influenced by Coltrane, which was his calling card when he spent much of the period from 1974 to 2009 in Europe, making many now hard-to-find albums. 

Two notable records, however, were made in New York with the pianists Cedar Walton (Love Is The Thing, 1985) and Barry Harris (Do It, 1991), which illustrate his gradual conversion to a mature style adding the influence of Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. 

An acquaintance with Belgium’s Jacques Pelzer (d.1994) who doubled as saxophonist and pharmacist, and also befriended Chet Baker and others, hints at the attractions of Grossman’s European lifestyle.  Among the many examples available on the internet is a festival appearance with our own Peter King, with whom he also appeared at the Pizza Express in 2013.