GREG'S BIOGRAPHY

Originally from Sydney, Greg Lloyd's curiosity and love for the jazz genre was initially sparked upon hearing Oscar Peterson play a Bb Blues. This led to his completion of a 1st Class Honours M.Mus from C.I.T (Cork School of Music) in Music and a B.Mus. in Jazz Performance from the Australian National University. Greg is currently researching for his PhD in Music.

Greg has been based in Dublin for the last 20 years interspersed with a few years based in Paris. During this time Greg has collaborated with numerous musicians in Ireland and abroad. Greg had the wonderful opportunity to spend over a year in Algiers on two separate occasions - 2006 and 2008 working with the masters of 'Chaabi' who had been underground since the revolution of Algeria in the early 1960s. He arranged, orchestrated, composed and rehearsed this music of the “casbah” the “Chaabi” music of Algiers for the CD and documentary film 'El Gusto', an Algerian 'Buena Vista Social Club'. This period of filming culminated in a tour of Europe where Greg performed with the El Gusto Orchestra at the Barbican (UK) and the Berlin Jazz Festival. Greg worked with the producers of Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti and Rachid Taha in France and he rehearsed the El Gusto Orchestra in preparation for the recording of their album the 'Abel Hadi Halo & the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers' album which he co-produced with Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz).

Upon his return to Dublin in 2009 Greg recorded his debut album 'Long Way Home' with his own band GLG (Greg Lloyd Group) and it has been receiving rave reviews in Ireland, Australia, UK, Germany, France and Japan where it was distributed the throughout Japan by Disk Union. One of the tunes from ‘Long Way Home’ was picked in 2013 to feature on Yasukuni Terashima ‘Jazz Bar 2013’ compilation album on the Terasima Records label - Japan.

All the influences along Greg's journey blend together on this album to form a stunning instrumental cocktail of original material drawing on Algerian North African Chaabi, Cuban Rhythms, Funk, Blues and Jazz.

Greg has studied with Joe Zawinul, Lee Konitz, John Patitucci, Mike Stern, Mark Murphy, Niels-Henning Orsted Peterson and Mike Nock.

Today Greg spends his time touring Europe, Australia working as a musician, teaching and composing.

GLG are in the studio working on the highly anticipated second album which is due to be launched in 2020/21.

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:

“An astonishing jazz pianist”, Tom Cahill – Totally Dublin.

“...a ruminative, mellow texture reminiscent of the Tord Gustavson Trio”, Paddy Kehoe - RTE Ten.

“ Imaginative changes...impressive quality...”, John Shand – Sydney Morning Herald.

“There is a rare quality about the music”,  Takashi Yamamoto – Japan Disk Union.

“...one of the outstanding Irish Jazz LPs of recent years”,  Ed Power - Irish Independent.

“Piano solos are imaginative and richly varied”,  Grainne Farren - Irish Independent.