Greg Spero

Genre-bending pianist, musical omnivore, and do-everything producer Greg Spero recently picked up another descriptor: founder of a record label. In 2020, Spero founded Tiny Records, an imprint of Ropeadope Records focused on featuring emerging artists and ensembles from a variety of stylistic backgrounds. His Tiny Room Sessions, a weekly web-video series with music from the label’s artists, illustrates the diversity of styles and sounds that co-habitate under the Tiny Room banner; you’re just as likely to find music there from electric bassist MonoNeon—the Nas, Thundercat, and Prince collaborator whose original work’s been compared to John Cage—as you are from an up-an-coming folk band like The Heart Strings Project. “All music is the same at its core,” Spero told Downbeat in 2018. “I found this [out] when studying Arnold Volpe next to Radiohead, and Charlie Parker next to Shoenberg.” This eclecticism is nothing new to Spero. The son of musicians, Spero’s played with jazz icons like Arturo Sandoval and Buddy Rich; he’s also toured with and written music for pop and hip-hop acts like Halsey and The Weeknd. Just as likely to be influenced by Radiohead as Miles Davis, the one-time keyboardist for the Miles Electric Band actually cut a record proving exactly that, with 2010’s Radio over Miles. In June 2020, the Spero-led quartet Sprit Fingers released Peace, the follow-up to 2018’s self-titled debut that Downbeat described as “a taut, lyrical style of fusion that falls somewhere between Return to Forever and solo Jean-Luc Ponty.” The Chicagoland native is now based in Los Angeles. -Matt Silver

Photo Credit: Tiny Room Records