Grant Geissman

Guitarist/composer Grant Geissman is a popular contemporary jazz recording artist, with fourteen highly regarded solo albums. As a studio guitarist he has recorded with such artists as Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Chuck Mangione (playing the now-legendary guitar solo on Chuck’s 1978 hit “Feels So Good”), Brian Wilson, Paula Abdul, Ringo Starr, Keiko Matsui, David Benoit, Placido Domingo and, among others, Julio Iglesias. He has also played on the scores for TV shows such as Two and a Half Men, Monk, Mad Men, and Dawson’s Creek, and films like Because I Said So, Austin Powers/The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Majestic, and Anaconda. Five of Geissman’s solo releases reached the top 10 on the national airplay charts, with two of them, Flying Colors and Time Will Tell, rising to the #1 position on the Gavin, Mac, and Radio & Records Charts.

Grant Geissman’s initial stamp on pop culture was the improvised guitar solo on Chuck Mangione’s 1978 pop crossover hit, ”Feels So Good.” A San Jose, California native who grew up on a steady diet of Beatles, Eric Clapton/Cream, surf guitar music and later jazz and blues greats Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and B.B. King, Geissman was in his senior year of college as a classical guitar major at Cal State Northridge in Los Angeles when a mutual friend recommended him for a gig with Chuck Mangione. With Mangione, Geissman recorded a number of albums, toured the world, and appeared on virtually all of the major TV programs of the time that featured live musical acts. Geissman is very gratified that “the solo” from Feels So Good is now regarded to be a classic.