Lionel Grigson

Who was Lionel Grigson?

Lionel Grigson was a British jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer and teacher, who in the 1980s started the jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music. As Simon Purcell wrote in The Independent, "Whether he inspired or inflamed, Grigson's energies often acted as a catalyst and his interest in, and support for, young jazz musicians contributed significantly to the growth and consolidation of jazz education in Britain....Within the context of a leading international conservatoire, the Guildhall School of Music, in London, Grigson did much to demonstrate and explain the underlying principles common to jazz, classical and indeed all music, and as a result produced a generation of jazz educators possessing a thorough grounding in an area where much educational work is left to chance." Among his published books are Practical Jazz, Jazz from Scratch and A Jazz Chord Book, as well as studies on the music of Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk.