Jeremy Steig

Jeremy Steig, (September 23, 1942), the son of New Yorker cartoonist William Steig, is notable as one of the few jazz flutists playing flute exclusively, as opposed to doubling from other woodwinds. ^[1]

At age 19 Steig was involved in a motorcycle accident which left him paralyzed on one side. For some years afterward, he played the flute with the help of a special mouthpiece.

After a start in mainstream jazz, with albums with Bill Evans and Denny Zeitlin, Steig became an early force in the jazz-rock fusion experiments of the late 1960s and early 70s, including with the short lived band Jeremy and the Satyrs.. His album Energy, later re-released with additional material, under different titles, featured keyboard player Jan Hammer and bassist Eddie Gomez, and was recorded at Electric Lady Studios under the hand of sometime Jimi Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer. Additionally, Steig played flute on the seminal Peter Walker record "Rainy Day Raga", providing an atmospheric color essential to the records fusion of Eastern Indian and Americana Folk traditions.

Steig addressed the tonal color restrictions of the instrument by the use of "modern" acoustic techniques (voice multiphonics and overtones similar to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, key percussion) electronic effects, and by using the entire battery of flute-family instruments, from piccolo to bass flute (including the obscure Sousa-era alto piccolo), often over-dubbed and multi-tracked together.

His song Howlin' For Judy from his 1970 album "Legwork" is the source of the main sample in the 1994 Beastie Boys' single "Sure Shot".

Discography

• 1963: Flute Fever (Columbia)
• 1968: Jeremy & The Satyrs (Reprise)
• 1969: Legwork (Solid State)
• 1969: This Is Jeremy Steig (Solid State)
• 1969: What’s New (with Bill Evans Trio - Verve)
• 1970: Wayfaring Stranger (Blue Note)
• 1970: Energy (Capitol) re-released wholly or partially on CD, with different combinations of extra tracks, as Fusion and Something Else
• 1974: Flute Summit (with James Moody, Sahib Shihab, Chris Hinze - Atlantic)
• 1976: Outlaws (Enja)
• 1977: Firefly CTI Records
• 1977: Crawl Space (with Art Farmer)
• 1978: Lend Me Your Ears (CMP)
• 1978: Music for Flute & Double-Bass (with Eddie Gomez(CMP)
• 1980: Rain Forest (CMP)
• 1992: Jigsaw Joe (Triloka)
• 2003: JAM
• 2004: IMPROVISED
• 2005: flute on the edge

References