Photo by August Ray
Jerry Grillo recently announced that he will celebrate his 20th anniversary as a jazz singer with a pair of performances. When pressed slightly, he readily admits that it’s been longer than 20 years, actually. “Someone threw it to me: ‘Haven’t you been in this business 20 years? You should perform at some of your old venues.’ Well, people are surprised at how long I’ve been doing this.”
Grillo’s first CD, This Funny World, was released in 1994, and if memory serves, he was performing at the Jazz Estate even earlier—but why quibble over the calendar? From the 1990s through now, Grillo has recorded nine albums and until a few years ago, maintained a vigorous performance schedule around Milwaukee. “I did so much, curriculum vitae wise, that anyone would think that I would’ve left town,” he says. “It seems that I should have had the goal to go farther, and I did have that in mind—at first.”
His career was in education and he pursued the calling of music on weekends and weeknights. While teaching at John Marshall High School, Grillo acted in musical theater on the side, and he continued teaching until 1999, several years into his run as a jazz singer. His musical imagination was always shaped by the era of the Great American Songbook, an epoch when pop melodies commonly provided material for jazz interpreters. Grillo began seriously focusing on jazz singing under the tutelage of Jackie Allen, an instructor at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music who later became a Blue Note recording artist. Allen helped Grillo secure a Chicago recording studio and session musicians for This Funny World. “She was very generous,” Grillo says. “She gave me one of the first songs she ever wrote, ‘I Chase the Sun,’ to record on the album.” It fit well alongside such standards as “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Speak Low.”
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Album followed album, and although Grillo has relaxed the pace, he has kept himself busy. He was the subject of a short documentary that was shown at the Milwaukee Film Festival and other festivals, and is booking agent, promoter and soundman at Angelo’s, a bar featuring live jazz on the city’s East Side. He remains optimistic about the music’s future. “There are a lot of young people who are just discovering these songs and what they are about,” he says. “They are curious about this music. I know there’s so much else out there these days, but we can’t let go of these songs.”
Jerry Grillo will perform May 28 at the Uptowner, 1032 E. Center St., and July 31 at the Jazz Estate, 2423 N. Murray Ave.
