Glenn Crytzer

Glenn Crytzer
New York City
Background information
Birth name	Glenn Crytzer
Born	(1980-10-13)October 13, 1980 Butler, Pennsylvania, United States
Genres	Orchestral jazz, swing, big band
Occupation(s)	Bandleader, guitarist, composer
Instruments	Guitar, banjo, cello
Years active	2001–present
Website

Glenn Crytzer (born October 13, 1980) is an American jazz band leader, composer, guitarist, banjoist, and singer. Crytzer began composing classical music at the age of 14 and achieved some repute as a young classical composer before shifting his focus to writing and performing jazz in his mid 20s. In the words of Michael Steinman of Jazz Lives, “Many jazz musicians present themselves not only as players but as composers, with varying results. (Crytzer) is one of those rare creative beings who beautifully fills both roles.”^[1]

Early life

Crytzer was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, United States. His musical education began at a young age with piano and violin, but neither stuck. At age 8, he took up the cello, and the guitar followed soon after, which he continued with through his time at Butler Area Senior High School. In 2000, Glenn Crytzer put down the guitar to focus on the cello and composition. In 2003, he earned a Bachelor of Music in classical composition from Florida State University, and attended the Cleveland Institute of Music from 2004-2006 where he earned a Master of Music in classical composition in 2006. In 2005, Crytzer received a BMI Student Composer Award for his first full orchestral piece “Nocturne Fantasy”, as well as an honorable mention in the New York Youth Symphony’s 2006 ‘First Music’ competition. He was also named a finalist in the 2006 ASCAP/SCI Student Commissioning Project Competition and a Semi-Finalist in the 2008 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards for his work, “In Stride”, a jazz violoncello solo.

Musical career

During his studies at CIM, Crytzer became interested in performing dixieland jazz. He taught himself to play the tenor banjo and he co-founded The Any Measure Jazz Band,[2] a "learning group" of classical music students who wished to explore the performance of early jazz music. After graduation Crytzer relocated to Seattle in 2006 and quickly set about gathering musicians to form a group of his own. First called Glenn Crytzer and his Red Hot Syncopators, and later shortened to Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators, Crytzer's band gave their first performance in June 2007, at the Hep Cat Swing Dance, the longest running all-ages Swing dance in Seattle.[3] The band performed dixieland jazz and swing music from the late 1920s and early 1930s. The band was a hit and was soon booked into more venues in Seattle including the Century Ballroom, the Kirkland Dance Center, Sonny Newmans and many others. In 2008, Crytzer picked up the guitar again after an 8 year hiatus and began moving the band's repertoire toward the swing music of the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was at this time that Crytzer founded the "Blue Rhythm Band," a 13 piece big band performing the music of the 1920s through 1940s.

Crytzer's bands soon gained a national reputation, giving performances in dozens of cities at swing dances, dance events, concerts, and jazz clubs across the US. In 2013 Crytzer expanded his 6 piece Syncopators to a 7 piece, renaming the band "The Savoy Seven," and in 2014, he relocated his bands to New York City, drawing some of the world's finest musicians into his organization. With his move to New York Crytzer also began curating a weekly jazz night at Pegu Club in SoHo, where he's joined by a rotating line up of some of the city's finest early jazz musicians. His groups have appeared at prestigious venues and events such as the Rainbow Room, the Redwood Coast, Sun Valley, San Diego, and Medford Jazz Festivals, the Glen Echo Ballroom, Lincoln Center's Midsummer Nights Swing, the Century Ballroom, and more than 300 other venues nation-wide.

Influences

Crytzer's influences include Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Chick Webb, Charlie Christian, Jimmie Lunceford, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Jimmie Rushing, and the other "greats" of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Rather than solely copying the work of others, however, Crytzer strives to create his own sound within the vintage style, composing and arranging new material that sounds authentic to the period.

Discography

Chasin' The Blues (2009)^[2]
Harlem Mad (2011)
Skinny Minne (2012)
Focus Pocus (2013)
A Little Love This Christmas (2013)
Uptown Jump (2015)

References