Jeremy Steig

Jeremy Steig (Sept. 23, 1942 — April 13, 2016) was an American jazz-rock flutist from NYC, known for Flute Fever, Jeremy & the Satyrs, Energy, and the Bill Evans Trio collaboration What’s New.

Background

Jeremy Steig was born Sept. 23, 1942, in Greenwich Village, New York City. Father William Steig worked as a New Yorker cartoonist and children’s-book author, while mother Elizabeth “Liza” Mead Steig worked as an art teacher and oil painter. Steig lived with his mother and sister Lucinda on Charles Street in the West Village after his parents divorced when he was two.

Steig started on recorder at age six and took up flute at eleven under New York Philharmonic flutist Paige Brook. He attended Little Red School House and City and Country School, followed by High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. Steig met bassist Eddie Gómez and pianist Larry Willis at Music and Art, where he and Gómez played jazz duets between classes. A Clifford Brown–Max Roach record helped Steig identify jazz as his musical direction around age fifteen. He also heard Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane at the Five Spot and began neighborhood gigs at sixteen, with flutist Bobby Jaspar among his early mentors.

A 1962 motorbike accident in Bermuda paralyzed the left side of Steig’s face and cost him hearing in his left ear. Steig devised an in-mouth apparatus that redirected his air stream and allowed him to resume flute. Columbia producer John Hammond subsequently offered Steig a recording date and assembled pianist Denny Zeitlin, bassist Ben Tucker, and drummer Ben Riley for a New York session on Oct. 23, 1963, which produced Steig’s debut album, Flute Fever.

Discography:

• Flute Fever (1964 • The Jeremy Steig Quartet)
• Jeremy & the Satyrs (1968)
• This Is Jeremy Steig (1969)
• Energy (1970)
• Legwork (1970)
• Wayfaring Stranger (1971)
• Fusion (1972)
• Monium (1974)
• Mama Kuku (1974 • Association P.C. + Jeremy Steig)
• Temple of Birth (1975)
• Firefly (1977)
• Outlaws (1977 • Jeremy Steig & Eddie Gomez)
• Lend Me Your Ears (1978)
• Music for Flute & Double Bass (1979 • Jeremy Steig & Eddie Gómez)
• Rain Forest (1980 • Jeremy Steig & Eddie Gomez)
• Jigsaw (1992)
• Flute on the Edge (2005 • Jeremy Steig Quartet)