PHILLIP GREENLIEF

PHILLIP GREENLIEF

photo by Manuel Enriquez

PHILLIP GREENLIEF

by Biggie Vinkeloe

I met Phillip Greenlief for the first time for breakfast after I had seen him performing at 21Grand in Oakland. I loved his approach to playing the saxophone. It was seamless, virtuoso, and still leaving space for the other musicians in the group. I got to play with him in a large ensemble, where he conducted his piece and I conducted mine. I enjoyed our duo concerts that felt like a friendly dialogue, pushing each other to new horizons.

As a toddler, in Los Angeles, Phillip Greenlief’s parents left him with Maude and Jack, the neighbors next door. “For my nap, I snuggled up against Maude’s Hammond organ. While she played, I slept to that sound, filling my body with a feeling of safety and comfort that created a deep impression of the love of music within me,” Phillip reminisced.

A composer in various formats, including traditional notation, text scores, game pieces, and two varieties of graphic scores composed with Barbed Wire and Map Scores, Phillip said, “I am a free improvisor.” His publishing company is Evander Music.

Phillip’s roots are Mescalero Apache and Irish on his father’s side; and his mother is Chickasaw and Irish. He said, “I prefer not to think of my culture as some kind of badge.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Phillip believes the environment shaped him to a large degree. “In the 1960’s, we listened to 93 KHJ AM. That station was unsegregated. The DJs’ playlists went from The Doors to Melanie or Joan Baez to The Beach Boys, or from the East Coast do-wop artists like Martha and the Vandellas or The Coasters to Jimi Hendrix or surf rock,” Phillip recounted. “Record stores were everywhere, and they were street universities. Then, you had to work harder to discover things. Now, you have the

internet, a virtual encyclopedia of music.”

Eventually, Phillip’s ancestry did impact his musicianship and philosophy of life. He said, “after touring in Canada, Europe, Russia, and South America, I started touring in the Southwest, where my father’s Mescalero Apache ancestors were from. My sound and approach changed, while playing in the deserts and in native communities. I had to address the question, Who am I? As I dug into that, all kinds of non-musical things began to influence my work.”

He got his first instrument, a guitar, in 2nd grade. In 5th grade, he picked up the trumpet and learned to read music. He said, “In 7th grade, I hated what we were playing in the school orchestra. So, I left.”

He bought an electric bass and a small amp, and started to jam with a classic garage band. “Then, I discovered the saxophone and that was it. The saxophone is my voice. It’s what I hear whenever I hear something in my head,” Phillip admitted.

For two years, Phillip bounced back and forth, between Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods. He drove down to San Francisco to attend concerts and there were jam sessions, everywhere. He moved there to dive into “The University of the Jam Session and the Record Store” he exclaimed! “Eventually, I went

back to the University of Southern California and completed my degree.”

“My parents were wonderful. They let me be what I wanted to be. In high school, I was surrounded by musicians, mostly females, and I had great teachers in college,” Phillip shared.

At jam sessions, Phillip found encouragement, especially from African American jazz musicians. He passes that on to young musicians. He remembered that the legendary keyboardist and jazz educator Ed Kelly said, “I’m not going to be around forever, so I am encouraging you. If you’re going to be the one to hold the torch, then I want to share my knowledge with you because the music has to live on.”

Phillip’s first gig was with a talented girl who had a gig at a restaurant in Santa Monica. “It took me by surprise,” Phillip recounted, “when she asked me to join her on stage. We played one song, then another. It felt amazing to be playing with her in front of people.”

Phillip believes that it is up to every musician to ensure that music will always be alive in the world. Teaching students to compose has been a great practice for Phillip, who said, “If a student wants to learn a specific tune, like Confirmation, for example, I ask them to write a melody over those changes - I mean, that’s what Parker did.”

When Phillip worked with the female musician in high school, she wrote lyrics, and he wrote the melodies over the chords. In theory classes at college, he had to write tunes. “I would play in the redwoods and make up solo saxophone pieces inspired by the trees. I would go to a lake and do the same,” Phillip remembered. “At some point, I was tired of what I was playing and listened to a lot of electronic music. I wanted to find new ways to play and make sounds. I tried to think about creating frequencies on

PHILLIP GREENLIEF

By Biggie Vinkeloe (con’t)

the saxophones, in addition to playing notes. I had to develop new systems of composition to reflect new sound languages. I learned to reimagine the basic tools like long tones, timbre studies, scales, chord arpeggios, and intervallic studies, the key elements in most kinds of music that enable you to be free in a given tonal or non-tonal area,” Phillip offered.

Regarding the challenges women face in the male-dominated music industry, Phillip said, “The scales are far from balanced, and women are paid less than men for the same gigs. The #metoo movement illustrated that some men are deeply fearful of women. They weaponize sex and power to oppress women. This practice is deeply ingrained, throughout history, in every aspect of culture, not just the music business. For this to keep happening in music production is depressing. I don’t

https://www.phillipgreenlief.com/

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understand how an artform that aims to inspire others and put love and joy into the world can be so segregated and oppressive.”

Phillip advised young people entering the world of literature or music performance, as follows, “Don’t give up. Work hard. Compose. Arrange. Improvise. Be curious about any kind of music or literature you can discover. Listen to music from other cultures. Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Make something happen. Start a concert series and invite people to perform. Compose music, invite people over to play it. Get together to improvise. You don’t need a score to make beautiful music, just big ears, and some technical facility on your instrument to move freely in any direction the music wants to go.”