Photo by Leiko Napoli courtesy of Jerry Grillo
Jerry Grillo
Jerry Grillo
The dining room was packed and loud. On one of the last days for Beans and Barley, the East Side’s beloved hub of healthy eating, Jerry Grillo met me there for lunch, as he had done for many years. The singer is soft spoken on stage and in person, and I had to lean across the table to hear him. He came to talk about his very public 82ndnd birthday, to be observed on Saturday, Feb. 28, a short walk from Beans to The Estate (2423 N. Murray St.).
“It’s actually not my birthday,” he confided, yet exact date or not, he will turn 82 in February, and can look back on a lifetime in music and, especially, late-life career pivot that began 25 years ago and included the release nearly a dozen albums, among them, CDs with big band leader Nick Contino and pianist Lynne Arriale. Although he became known in Milwaukee’s jazz adjacent circles only after retiring from Milwaukee Public Schools in the early ‘90s, he was singing professionally as far back as 1965. His birthday show at the Estate will be a look back.
Grillo’s singing began while at college in Duluth, with a gender-race integrated vocal quartet, The Windsors, and roles in musical theater. He always had one foot in pop jazz standards and the other on Broadway. After moving to Milwaukee, he performed with the now-defunct Milwaukee Players in Company, Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret, and sang in the ‘70s with the pop group Sweet Earth. “After that, I didn’t sing for 10 years,” he said, biding his time until retirement before refocusing on the love of his life, singing. He enrolled in the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music where he studied voice with Jackie Allen. “I heard her sing at the Windham and thought, ‘I have to do this!’ It just clicked in my mind.”
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Grillo came late to songwriting, starting only at the end of the last decade. He will perform at least two originals at The Estate. One is an ode to his adopted hometown, “My Hometown Milwaukee,” honored in a 2022 proclamation by Mayor Cavalier Johnson. The other, “How Many Februarys,” was composed “as a song Karen Carpenter could have sung. There was a melancholy quality to her voice, deep melodic tones,” he said. “The crux of the lyric is thinking in terms of age, how many years will a person live, how much time to do what we want to do?
The set will include many of Grillo’s favorites, including Etta James’ “At Last” and a trio of Tony Bennett hits, “I Want to Be Around,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “Because You.” Grillo also plans to sing Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” “Tonight” from West Side Story and a favorite from his high school days, Frankie Avalon’s “Venus.” Grillo will be accompanied by pianist John Hefter, drummer Randy Maio and saxophonist-flutist Jeanne Marie Farinelli.
“The show will be a continuation of everything I’ve ever done—the music that was part of my life,” Grillo explained. “In between numbers, I will talk about each song, and how that song was part of my life—without trying to say too much!”
Jerry Grillo will perform at 8 p.m., Saturday Feb. 28 at The Estate. For tickets, visit www.tix.com/ticket-sales/thejazzestate/6755/event/1457117
