We celebrate the centennial of Gigi Gryce (Basheer Qusim).
Gryce became a leading figure in his brief career in the 1950s. as a saxophonist, composer, arranger, music publisher, and teacher and mentor to many musicians.
Gryce was born November 28, 1925 in Pensacola, Florida. His parents owned a clothes cleaning business, but his father died when he was seven. In the midst of the Great Depression, the family lost the business, and his mother raised a large brood of children as a single mother. But there was always music in the home with his various siblings, and Gigi also had a strong high school music education.
Drafted into the Navy during World War II, thankfully someone noticed his musical talent. He was eventually assigned to military bands, notably at the Great Lakes Training Station. Discharged from the service after the war, Gryce moved to New England and had serious classical music conservatory training in Hartford and Boston.
But upon graduating the conservatory, he moved to New York City and began an intensive career in our jazz fellowship. Gryce had a personal sound on the alto sax, and an organizational ability that had him successfully leading his own bands and consulting with many others in leading theirs.
He made some remarkable recordings in his own bands, a group with Art Farmer, and the “Jazz Lab” that he co-led with Donald Byrd. He appeared as a musician and arranger, sometimes both roles at once, in significant projects of the greats such as Clifford Brown, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Charles, Thad Jones, and Benny Golson, to name a few.
Gryce composed more than 60 songs, most of which have remained components of our modern jazz repertory to this very day – examples are Minority, Hymn To The Orient, Nica’s Tempo, Reminiscing, Reunion, Social Call, Wildwood, and there are many more.
Distressed by the harsh economic realities of the music business and personal issues in the breakup of his family life, Gryce left jazz in the early 1960s. He began a second career as a schoolteacher in New York City Public Schools. He studied for a doctorate in Education at Fordham University, and eventually settled in as a leading educator at PS 53 in the South Bronx. Living under his Muslim name and otherwise drawing no attention to his prior musical life, Qusim became a beloved youth leader in the community. He died in 1983. Upon his passing the school was named for him, and still stands on East 168th Street.
originally broadcast November 23, 2025
