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The Dude Abides
by Frank De Blase on September 24, 2008
There are a lot more guys out there like Rochester multi-talented multi-instrumentalist Tommy Gravino than you think. You know, extremely talented players that live and love music while its extraneous rewards elude them. You don't hear about cats like this everyday. They're not in the tabloids. They're not in Billboard Magazine. It's the rock star banging the porn star; it's the bling and the cash register cha-ching; it's the parade of charlatans that typically assail us from all sides. That's not to say what they play isn't any good, I just have a better time believing artists that live closer to the ground.
Gravino lives close to the ground - country ground. After a recent break up with his girlfriend of seven years, and after hearing his neighbors bitch and moan about loud music coming from his crib at all hours of the night one too many times, Gravino bid the city adios and moved to a house on a hill in the woods in Bristol. It's his first time living alone in 27 years. Gravino is hard to pin down stylistically. His music changes from instrument to instrument. And whether he's singing, playing keyboards, or saxophone, or flute, Gravino's style vacillates within those confines as well. He stretches their limits. And he proves it on his new release, "Twenty Years."
"Twenty Years" is all over the map. Jazz, rock, world music, and a sort of mellow contemporary pop seem to dominate, but it's the ethereal mix and atmosphere that ties it all together. Everything seems to float to the listener - or maybe it's the other way around. It lilts and it coaxes. But it's Gravino's voice, the one thing he tries to downplay, that'll hit you, the way it crackles with genuine blue-eyed soul. It doesn't boom or try for the clouds, but it's an impressive, honest tenor. He feels, he sings, you hear, you believe.
While drumming up material for the album, Gravino was looking for a weekend getaway. Abilene owner Danny Deutsch had an idea.
"He suggested I go see Levon Helm down in Woodstock," Gravino says. "Tickets were $200 each, but it was a very intimate show in his studio.
It was in this old barn with three tiers and a listening area. Only about 100 to 120 people. They meet you at the driveway and walk you in. Everyone brings a dish to pass."
Gravino fell in love with the studio and the vibe. He tracked down the manager. "He said, ‘$100 bucks an hour, and if you've got enough dough, Levon will come in and drum for you,'" he says. Starmaker machinery and priorities on Helm's end led to cancellation after cancellation. Gravino gave up on the session and moved it back home to Saxon Studios, with mellow fellow producer Dave Anderson at the wheel. The resulting album is a gentle, jazzy, thoughtful endeavor. It's evocative and still peaceful, like the man himself. Though he flies solo and conducts himself in a DIY kind of way, Gravino doesn't fiddle with the knobs himself.
"They say, ‘Record at home. Get a home studio,'" he says. "I can't get near it. I can't keep up with it. There's too much to do. I don't care about it. It takes away from the magic. I like to have another set of ears."
Gravino still hustles and is constantly on the prowl for opportunities. He recently honked some raunchy sax on arena rockers the New York Vaults' upcoming release. But between session gigs and guest spots on stage, he's at peace and happy, content to be playing at various weekly gigs with folks like guitarists Ryan T. Carey and Jack Edward Smith. He's as pleasant and Zen as he is talented. The dude abides.
Gravino is currently working with his ASCAP rep, pitching songs for commercial and film work. A radio hit would be cool, too.
"Yeah, Dolly Parton picking up a tune and making a hit out of it," he says. "That'd be nice." Tommy Gravino www.rochestercitynewspaper.com
PROFILES
Tom Gravino
Long-time Rochester player, Tom Gravino describes his new one-man project, “A Solo Act With Flair.” The solo act consists of a variety of music, including classical, pop, easy listening, classics, crowd favorites and Motown. The flair of the solo act is the use of a diversity of instruments. Tom combines some of his own pre-recorded keyboard and percussion tracks along with live performances on the saxophone and flute for a complete multi-instrumental presentation. Live solo piano or keyboard with vocals rounds out a complete package.
Tom began playing music at age 8, and by 16, he received a music scholarship to New Mexico State University. He has also studied at the Eastman School of Music and majored in flute at SUNY Brockport. Tom has toured throughout forty states, Canada, Mexico, England and South Africa. He spent three years in Las Vegas playing at the Silver Slipper, The Landmark Hotel & Casino, Vegas World, and more. Internationally, Tom has performed with G.E. Smith from the Saturday Night Live Band; Sandler & Young, a comedy troupe from England; Trini Lopez; Chris Duarte and more, and has played in warm-up bands for Kansas, Brian Setzer, Mountain, Stan Getz and Journey.
Locally, Tomas has performed with Chet Catallo, Mark Manetta, Dan Schmitt, The Dukes, The Convertibles, The Nightstalkers, The Coupe de Villes and on a regular basis with popular party band, Holleywood Al & the Mix, and duo partner, Jack Edward Smith. Experience Gravino’s “flair” as he performs at the Honeoye Pub, 125 E. Lake Rd., Honeoye Lake (229-4535) on Wednesday, February 20th and at the California Brew Haus, 402 Ridge Rd. W. (621-1480) on Friday, February 22nd in a happy hour show.
On “Monroe Avenue,” Tom Gravino sings about cruising his neighborhood bars in hopes of catching a glimpse of his long-lost dream girl in cut-off jeans and a halter top; fat chance finding her at Woody’s these days, since according to the song she’s just won a Grammy. So it’ll be just Gravino solo when he debuts his new CD, Party of One, 9 p.m. Saturday at J.B. Quimby’s Public House, 3259 S. Winton Road, Henrietta, NY.
Gravino, a familiar sight around Rochester with his saxophone and flowing Kenny G hair, mixes an easy-listening jazz style with an easy-listening pop style that will bring to mind late-‘70s chart studs like Jay Ferguson. His one-man live show features Gravino playing reeds or keyboards to pre-recorded drum and keyboard tracks. It’s all pretty restrained; even when Gravino sings about lying naked on the bow of a boat with a woman. Party of One sounds like it was recorded with a daiquiri in one hand.
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NEW MUSIC BOX
The Web Magazine from the American Music Center
SoundTracks Party of OneTOMMY GRAVINO
Out of Rochester, NY, comes Tommy Gravino, a classically trained flutist who has since evolved into a multi-faceted musician of which his flute playing is only a small part. He is also an accomplished keyboardist and vocalist as well as an award-winning songwriter. Each piece is a carefully constructed, original blend of smooth jazz, country, pop, and world music.
FREETIME MAGAZINE
Words & Music By Michelle Picardo
Tommy Gravino has just released his impressive new CD, Party Of One, which he’ll be celebrating with a party at J.B. Quimby’s on Saturday, November 9th. Gravino, who also performs with local Top 40 favorites, Holleywood Al & the Mix, is a colossal one-man band, taking care of keyboards, flute, sax, vocals, songwriting and more. Gravino explores many styles on the release, from pop to jazz, and dabbles in country on the award-winning “Down In Nashville”, and even Latin on the instrumental “Modern Gypsies”. Another award-winner (both from Florida-based, Mild 2 Wild Entertainment, chosen from 3,000 entries), “Wheel Of Fortune” is a lush beauty, with Tommy’s voice recalling Boz Scaggs at times. While Gravino can do it all, he knows when to ask for a little help from some skilled friends, including Matthew D. Guarnere on drums & percussion throughout (who also co-produces), as well as guitarists Frank DeBlase and Jack Edward Smith, who show up on a couple of songs. Check out this very skilled musician…
City Magazine
Music Feature by Frank De Blase
Here’s a mild-mannered guy with super-hero potential: an unassuming individual of shy opulence with a keen willingness to share nonetheless. No heart on his sleeve; nothing up his sleeve, for that matter. You might mistake him for a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief: anything but a musician. You probably wouldn’t expect to read about such a casual cucumber.
Tommy Gravino comes on cool. Tommy Gravino waxes nonchalant. Tommy Gravino soars below radar, where he’s seen a thing or two. It’s the bluesy bebop from his sax, an ethereal lilt from his flute, the raking of his fingers across the 88s, either way you’re gonna dig Tommy Gravino.
On a recent sun-baked Park Ave. afternoon you might’ve been lucky enough to see Gravino breeze by in a shiny red convertible piloted by a pretty blonde. With his long mane waving behind him, an easy-going smile spread across his face, there was a man clearly loving life.
Gravino blows hell from his saxophone: a syncopated swagger with one breath, and a rusty, mournful cry the next. A stoic stage presence belies the wealth of music in his soul. Though gigging steadily for years as a professional musician, the big break seems one step beyond.
“You always hope to break into something, or luck into something,” he said recently. “It’s just been eluding me.”
OK, so he hasn’t sold his soul to record label bigwigs or bumped rails with Bono, but the cat’s been around. And he’s damned good.
This rather quiet man clearly loves all music and is essentially a chameleon, floating effortlessly through jazz, rock, blues, new-age, you name it. Getting him to describe it, however, is like pulling teeth. It’s not that he thinks it’s unimportant, it’s just that his passion moves almost exclusively through his music.
“I love all types of music,” he says, his eyes widening. “But my absolute favorite is funky.” His proficiency on a number of instruments and his ability to write and arrange make him the Rochester musician’s numero uno go-to guy. Whether jamming with G.E. Smith, Trini Lopez, or the Coupe de Villes, Gravino takes on each group or artist’s aesthetic. He cops their attitude. He plays their music, making it his own.
Gravino grew up in East Irondequoit and began playing the sax by age eight. At 16, he got a scholarship to New Mexico State University. “It was culture shock out there, man, whoa!” he says. “They didn’t even do blues. It was all acid rock or country at the time. It was tough to get a gig.” Gravino also studied music at SUNY Brockport, Empire State College, and the Eastman School of Music.
“Four schools, no degrees,” he laughs.The Holiday Inn circuit was big at the time, and Gravino wound up criss-crossing the country “doin disco six nights a week” before moving to LA in 1976.
“I hooked up with a cat named Chick Willis, who played guitar and sang,” he says. Chick’s brother, Chuck, was an r & b sensation from Atlanta known for penning the classic, “C.C. Rider.”
“We toured in a motor home with a trailer,” Gravino says. Willis was ex-military, so the duo played military bases “anywhere in a big circle between San Francisco and Oklahoma.”
In between the G.I. gigs for Uncle Same, they’d pick up some colorful side work. “We’d park in these low-income housing areas,” he says. “Welfare homes that were barely a step up from trailer parks. You’d bring your own booze and they’d provide set-ups.” A particular bar at one of these redneck Rivieras remains forever pungent on Gravino’s mind.
“It was so bad, it had chicken wire in front of the stage,” he says. “The bathroom was a sink at knee-level with a hose going out the back. We didn’t do that for too long.” While still gigging with various bands around LA in 1979, a Chinese agent hooked Gravino up with a slick gig playing sax for Morris Bates, a Native-American Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas.
“I was taking a dump just before the (first) show,” Gravino says, “when all of a sudden I see high heels in the stall next to me standing; facing the toilet. What a trip, man!”
The King had only been dead two years, and the impact and importance of impersonators was yet to be fully realized, exploited, or played-out. The Elvis impersonator and a troupe of female impersonators shared dressing rooms and, apparently, bathrooms. The King and the queens alternated acts every night at the legendary Silver Slipper on the old sin-city strip. “That gig lasted about three years,” he says.
Bates took the group to South Africa, where they were unable to bring a black singer from the group.
“Apartheid was still happening, even though the black-white ratio was something like six to one,” he says. “In fact, Mandela was still in jail.” Gravino was there for a month playing to large auditoriums of whites and witnessing local flavor—including a knife fight in Soweto—with an Indian tour guide.
The early ‘80s found Gravino back east, living and playing in Binghamton before moving back to Rochester. He joined TCB (the Elvis irony continued) with Ronnie Alberts (Wilmer & The Dukes) and Kate Silverman. Gravino worked with countless touring and local acts. Happy as a sideman, he continued to write, despite the difficulty in finding willing sidemen of his own. He self-released A Flute’s Dream, an album of eastern-type new age music. Gravino says the album proved to be popular as relaxing background music for massage therapists.
Today, Gravino keeps busy adding his fingerprints and soul to bands through writing, arranging, and playing. He is willing to sit in with just about anybody in need of a little soulful honk ‘n’ wail from his saxamaphone. He regularly plays with the incomparable flamenco guitarist, Jack Edward Smith, and plays as a one-man act throughout the city, performing covers and originals, playing all the instruments with confident ease.
Gravino was recently awarded honorable mention in the “Mild 2 Wild Best Song, Best Lyrics” contest in Ft. Myers, for his song, “Down In Nashville.” His new album, the aptly titled Party Of One, will be out in November, featuring eight of his new compositions. Gravino can be caught all over town. He keeps on keepin’ on.
“I don’t know, man” he shrugs, smiling, “I love getting out and having a good time. I still love to play live.”
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