Cover Photo: Members of the Chris Greene Quartet; (left to right foreground) Chris Greene (ts), Marc Piane (b), Steve Corley (d), and guest D2G (left background).
EDIT 12/24: Chris Greene has released a single from this set, called “Beyhive Traffic Blues,” using a photo from (and compensating) the author. Check it out!
By Dominic Guanzon
Sunday 7/23/23
Chris Greene is a giant on the saxophone whose height and tone hang over the audience, all as his steel face gives you the impression it could also sweep a poker table. He is also a veritable jokester on the microphone between songs.
“I want to thank you all for choosing me over Beyoncé,” the deadpan sax player joked, in reference to the pop star’s concerts in Chicago that weekend. Opening the one-set night with some introductory words, he invited the audience to make as much of whatever noise they saw fit. Later, while on the mic again in between songs, he told the story of how a drum came loose and fell into the audience the last time they were at Evanston’s SPACE. He pointed at the first person that laughed.
“Was that you?” Greene again joked, or perhaps asked earnestly. It’s difficult to tell at times.
“I don’t think he realizes how funny he is,” Greene’s sister told me after the show.
Audience participation is a dangerous proposition, as any stand-up comedian will tell you, but stand-up it was not. This was the Chris Greene Quartet, which, if we’re pushing the comedy metaphor, is more akin to an improv show with very long, but very entertaining sets of music by one of Chicagoland’s long-standing squad of musicians.
SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.
The Chris Greene Quartet has been around in its current iteration for 12 years, with drummer Steve Corley joining in 2011. Pianist Damian Espinosa and bassist Marc Piane have known Greene and have been his recording partners for a full decade before that. Collectively, they’re the kind of band that can have Greene play the opening notes to an original composition on any given night, and the rhythm section can pick up the rest instantly.
That may be less of a parlor trick and more of a necessity.
“I write setlists, and I don’t follow them,” Greene shamefully told the crowd, “I know, but I have a concept of the night, a story I’m telling,” he pleaded. The crowd chuckled on, and the rest of the band simply smiled.
Regardless of what order they’re played in, those songs and that sound almost feel funk-infused first, with the bop tradition coming a very close second.
“In Confidence,” composed by the quartet’s pianist Damian Espinosa, is a prime example of this. It’s a song written to have an excellent groove in the foreground and interesting rhythms in the melody, such that it’s clearly in the jazz idiom. Yet, it’s spoken in such a funky way through Greene’s driving solo. It also didn’t hurt the band took it on an uptempo from 2009’s “Merge” album.
Espinosa bounced between his Nord keyboard and the house Yamaha grand, channeling Bill Evans in the lighting, the lean, and the Clark Kent look. Greene sporadically took to the soprano saxophone.
Damien Espinosa (foreground, p) switched between piano and keyboard in his blue corner. SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photos by Dominic Guanzon.
Piane also swapped his upright bass for an electric as well as soloing occasionally, but he provided more than ample commentary through the songs he wrote like “Wildcat,” with its deep, rich swing, as well as “Samba Fu Maga.”
The latter song made its debut on the 2022 album “PlaySPACE: 2: Play Harder,” partially recorded at SPACE in 2019 in addition to other dates and locations. That night at the Evanston venue, however, the band was celebrating a number of recent accolades: 4 ½ stars from Downbeat magazine for “PlaySPACE 2”, “Best Albums of 2022” from Downbeat, and “Best Jazz Ensemble” from Chicago Reader’s “Best of 2022.”
Greene did not shy away from the limelight for those accomplishments, announcing them before going into “Samba Fu Maga.” Coming out of that song, the band transitioned straight into “Bride of Mr. Congeniality, which debuted on their 2012 album “A Group Effort,” which itself is a spiritual sequel to Greene’s song “Mr. Congeniality” from his 1998 non-Quartet album “On the Verge.”
Amidst a scene that constantly sees side players come and go, and small projects pop up only to disappear, this kind of consistency and internal lineage gives a kind of hometown hero feel to the band, and gives fans that much more to chew on. Fitting, for the self-proclaimed “Emperor of Evanston”.
Marc Piane. SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.
“So when are you gonna get to the jazz?” Greene sarcastically asked himself on the mic. “People ask ‘when are you gonna play standards,’” he continued, as the audience laughed, “for god’s sake y’all act like you don’t know what I’m doing!”
Fulfilling that quota was a rendition of “Polkadots and Moonbeams,” the ballad of the night. Greene took to the soprano once again, and the fulfillment came in the performance of an old standard that I haven’t heard live in a long time.
There’s a certain charm to Greene’s solos, as if you can hear him winking. He has a direct sound and style for sure, yet it’s not through musical cliches or tired quotes – he knowingly saves those for the microphone. Instead, it’s through the sheer fun and show of it all. The Quartet’s shows almost have a church or Apollo Theater undercurrent to them, though the crowd was far too well-behaved to properly declare that. I do wonder what his shows would be like if they did.
Chris Greene. SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photos by Dominic Guanzon.
Perhaps the closest we’ll get are the pair of extended simultaneous solos Greene had with Espinosa and Corley on separate songs. Corley in particular exploded in big solos, as Greene hunched over and near squatted in a direct confrontation with the drummer. This went on for several minutes, and the audience ate it right up.
Jazz music, all live music really, is constantly communicative even in the most mundane of parts. Whenever someone can coax a little extra out of simmering workhorses like the Quartet’s rhythm section, it’s a treat. To have Greene be the one to do it is especially hilarious considering he himself puts up such a front.
Steve Corley (right, d) came ready to “fight” with Greene. SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.
The big surprise of the night came from guest hip-hop artist D2G (aka Anthony Di’Angelo Ingram, Jr.) from Chicago’s southeast side. Despite being caught “in Beyoncé traffic,” he was able to make it to Evanston to freestyle for six minutes over a vamp of “The Crossover Appeal” by the quartet.
The verse was 100% improvised according to D2G, or “2G,” and proved it when the wireless microphone he was using cut out for a split second. This prompted him to follow up with the following bars a minute later:
You might wanna say what type of pride you never put aside with it,”
‘Cause I guarantee you if this mic goes out again, imma drive quick!”
(Note: Accuracy of transcribed lyrics may vary.)
2G’s spoken word was a welcome addition to the night, adding one funky feather in cap of the quartet. It also provided another building block of the pivotal bridge between bop-oriented jazz and hip-hop.
Such a bridge has long-existed in Chicago. Trumpeter Marquis Hill’s 2014 album “Modern Flows Vol. 1” featured Tumelo Khoza declaring black excellence to open the album, and Keith “King Legend” Winford weaving in and out of various sets of tracks. Both appeared alongside Hill years ago around the album’s release. Meanwhile, the Chicago Yestet supergroup has long hosted spoken word artists like Keith Harris and Rob Dz on their albums and in their live sets from Chicago Jazz Festival to Constellation.
However you cut it, the jazz-hip-hop tradition, a tale of two black improv arts, is a fascinating one that shined bright for a moment in Evanston. D2G’s group, D2G and The Stadium Status, continues to make appearances around town.
Guest hip-hop artist D2G joins the Chris Greene Quartet. SPACE, 8/2/2023. Photos by Dominic Guanzon.
Plenty of audience stuck around for each member of the band once the show had wrapped up; some family. An aftershow meet and greet like that isn’t always guaranteed, but when they happen, there’s a little more peace in this world. I couldn’t help but wonder if the quartet felt the same.
In a recent interview I had with Greene, I asked him what it’s like to have “made it” as a working musician. Despite his cheekiness on the stage, he chose humility instead.
“The lights are still on and there’s food in the fridge…Everything I’m doing now is tied to associations and people that I’ve met 10 to 20 years ago. If you just continue to stay on your game and try to be as decent of a person as you can, you’ll never be out of work.”
He made sure not to linger too long on the sappiness.
”As long as people listen to the song “Careless Whisper,’ I will always have a job.”
The Chris Greene Quartet is:
Chris Greene (ts, s)
Damien Espinosa (p)
Marc Piane (b, eb)
Steve Corley (d)
Featuring:
D2G (spoken word)
Correction: “Bride of Mr. Congeniality” originally debuted on “A Group Effort,” not “Playtime – Volume 2.”
Blue Collar Jazz 
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