GEORGE GRUNTZ
Genres: Progressive Big Band, Post Bop, Third Stream, Avant-Garde Jazz, World Fusion, Post-Fusion Contemporary, Jazz Related Soundtracks, Classic Fusion • Switzerland

For George Gruntz Piano Conclave search under "Piano Conclave" George Paul Gruntz, jazz pianist and bandleader, born 24 June 1932; died 10 January 2013. When the jazz pianist George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band played at Ronnie Scott's club in London a dozen years ago, they caught listeners unawares with a blend of the ambiguities and mysterious undercurrents of Gil Evans's partnerships with Miles Davis, and the punch and power of a conventional swing group. Gruntz, who has died aged 80, was one of the few internationally acclaimed Swiss-born jazz musicians, and had an unusually broad vision. It was his Concert Jazz Band – or just plain CJB – under Quincy Jones's baton that backed an ailing Davis in 1991, on the trumpeter's swansong visits to the classic scores from Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain. No bandleader could have been better suited than Gruntz to furnishing a premier-league international orchestra read more...