Criss Cross Jazz 1419 CD

Gregory Groover Jr.

Lovabye



Gregory Groover’s Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist’s thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates. Lovabye follows Groover’s formidable first full-length album.

During the lockdown, Groover had generated a group of “love songs and songs of people I love.” In spring 2023, he brought this music to Walter Smith III, who Groover had idolized as a teenager, and is now his friend and colleague at Berklee School of Music, their mutual alma mater, where Groover serves as Assistant Chair of the Ensemble Department. “I told Walter I’d like to play with some of my other heroes and peers,” Groover recalls. “He said, ‘What’s stopping you? The music is there.’ Luckily for me, everyone who I wanted to record with was available and happy to do it.”

“Greg’s composing supports how he plays,” Smith says. “He’s a thematic musician, whose playing very much relates to the song. He plays with a lot of energy, and he leads with that. The heart is the most important thing – the direction and motion of what he plays is where he really feels.

Criss Cross Jazz 1419 LP

As part of the label's vinyl (re-)release plan the album is now available as LP (180 grams black vinyl).

The album was recorded August 16, 2023 at the GSI Studios in NY. The recording engineer was Chris Allen at GSI Studios, while Mike Marciano did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two in NY. He also did the vinyl mastering for this LP issue.