Marty Grosz

One of jazz music's great comedians (his spontaneous monologues are often hilarious), Marty Grosz is a brilliant acoustic guitarist whose chordal solos bring back the sound of Carl Kress and Dick McDonough of the 1930s, while his vocals are very much in the Fats Waller tradition. It took Grosz a long time to get some visibility. He grew up in New York, attended Columbia University, and in 1951 led a Dixieland band with Dick Wellstood that was unrecorded. Based in Chicago, Grosz did record with Dave Remington, Art Hodes, and Albert Nicholas in the 1950s; led sessions of his own...