Greg Howard

Greg Howard Band: Lift

by Scott Andrews
November 1, 2001

Chapman Stick player Greg Howard has recorded solo albums and gigged his often Spanish influenced electric jazz in Charlottesville, Virginia for over fifteen years. The Chapman Stick, a 10 or 12 stringed electric instrument invented by Emmett Chapman in the 1970s, contains low and high pitched strings for playing bass lines and melodies simultaneously. The strings are tapped with a fingertip, not plucked like a guitar or electric bass, giving the sound a bouncy quality unique among stringed instruments.

Frequently ...

Greg Howard: Water on the Moon

by John W. Patterson
November 1, 1999

I own a few of Howard’s Stick recordings and have sampled others but this release is a significant and wonderfully successful departure from his norm. Those of you familiar with guitarist Michael Brook and his Live at The Aquarium release will understand the principle of sample-hold-repeat mixed with live improv. Howard jams for a solid 59+ minutes and never loses steam nor bores my improv-critical ears. This is got to be some the most fascinating and tour de force Stick ...

Greg Howard: Sol

by Christopher Hoard
April 1, 1998

It's almost been two decades since the LA band Kittyhawk introduced the 10-stringed Chapman Stick to jazz fusion. For those still uninitiated, the stick was designed on the basis of a revolutionary, string tapping technique positioning the guitar's neck parallel to the musician's body, and approaching the neck with the arms at a perpendicular angle, and then tapping two sets of strings on an electric instrument indepentently. There have been a number of musicians who've now adopted the instrument, primarily ...