Interview with saxophonist Chris Greene

For saxophonist Chris Greene, turning 50 was a double milestone. It inspired him to look back on his career and the strides he has made as an independent jazz artist. It also inspired him to reflect on his life as a husband, father and family man. Little did he know how happily those two worlds would collide.

Greene was working at home on music for his excellent new album, Conversance, when his attentive 12-year-old son Alex, a talented pianist and drummer and major Star Wars fan, played a melody for him inspired by one of the tunes his old man was playing. The elder Greene liked it so much, he decided to use it as the A section of the song, a six-measure blues in 6/4 time with a bridge. "It was a perfect fit," he says. "It really made the tune."

Dad properly gave his son a co-writing credit and called the song "The Emperor Strikes Back," also a nod back to Chris' earlier composition, "Future Emperor of Evanston." There are numerous high points on Conversance, but none as high as this one for the older half of this rare father-son collaboration.

Greene, the pride of Evanston, Illinois, has been one of the Midwest's most popular jazz artists since his quartet in 2005. The group, featuring pianist Damian Espinosa, bassist Marc Piane and drummer Steve Corley, was voted best jazz band in Chicago in a poll by the alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader. A fan friendly artist with strong ties to the community, Greene has gifted his followers with a trio of mixtapes by the group that were recorded live various clubs and jazz festivals. Those recordings, dubbed Playtime I, II and III serve as sidebars to his regular efforts, as do a pair of subsequent albums released under the tag PlaySPACE.

Following the single "Beyhive Traffic Blues," featuring emcee D2G, Conversance is the first-ever jazz release for Pravda Records, a prized indie of eclectic leanings that has been releasing recordings since 1984. It is the Chris Green Quartet's first studio album in seven years.

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Chris Greene