A native of Michigan, Greg received a B.A. in Music Education from the University of Michigan. He taught Jazz Studies at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan for several summers and directed the high school band program in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Greg was also very active in the Detroit and metropolitan jazz scene, playing trombone professionally with many name jazz artists including Arnette Cobb, Slide Hampton, Nancy Wilson, The Four-Tops, The Temptations, Cab Calloway, Ron Carter, Kenny Baron, Frank Foster, and Ramsey Lewis. In 1983 Greg moved to Florida and left the education field. He made his living writing and performing music. Greg successfully started five bands in one season ranging in size from two to sixteen pieces and had them all working regularly. He wrote a library for each of them, and was featured on many of the prominent jazz festivals in Florida. His six-piece jazz ensemble IMAJAZZ was featured with the sixty-five piece Lakeland Symphony in 1986, a performance for which Greg wrote the complete orchestral score. But his most notable accomplishment is the founding of the sixteen piece Native Brass Big Band, which in one year logged over 87 paid jazz performances throughout the West Coast of Florida. Greg continued to share the stage with many famed touring jazz artists and musicians including Nat Adderly, the late Al Cohn, and Bobby Shew, as well as local artists such as Larry Elgart, Bobby Rosengarden, Glenn Zottola, and Warren Covington. In 1986 he returned to the education field to instruct young musicians. He is currently a music educator in Sarasota, Florida teaching instrumental music at Booker Middle School and continues to make his presence known in the jazz field through professional performances, composing, arranging, and recording.
Shortly after the year 2000, Greg turned into a recording engineer and has recorded and produced CD’s for many local big bands, Don Scalletta’s Kenton Orchestra “The Project”, John LaPorta’s “I Remember Woody”, Charlie Prawdzik’s “Dreamworld”, his own Dixieland group the “Foot Note Jazz Band”, and “Trombone Giants” just to mention a few. In his spare time he coaches a young jazz group called Jazz Juvenocracy jazzjuvenocracy.com and also co-leads a jazz big band in the Tampa Bay Area called the Jazz Legacy Big Band. Future CD releases are coming up soon with the Jazz Legacy Big Band (Fall 2009) and a jazz quintet "Somewhere in Time" (Fall 2009)
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