Sam Stryke

First up, pianist Sam Stryke will triple up with drummer Randy Marsh and bassist Charlie Hoats for what promises to be a dynamic trio performance at 1:45 p.m. Saturday on the City Stage, unleashing airy pop-jazz from his new album, "Brunch: Vol. 1 Sunny Side Up." Stryke, a Grand Rapids native and Forest Hill Central High School alum who now lives in Chicago, creates the kind of delectable, ultimately listenable jazz that's ideal for a sunny morning or afternoon, so let's hope the weather holds up Saturday. "Sound Check" today features the track, "Double Shot," which really highlights Stryke's crisp, bang-up piano work. - The Grand Rapids Press

Pianist/keyboardist Sam Stryke has sailed the musical seas of several genres over the past couple of decades. Having worked with new age, adult contemporary, and holiday music, he now tries on a variety of smooth jazz for size (pop jazz)and finds that it fits quite well here on Brunch, a bright collection of popping tracks that bear great resemblance to the David Benoit/Bruce Hornsby/Vince Guarldi styles. A feel-good vibe that Stryke believes sets the perfect mood for weekend mornings. I quite agree.

From the bouncy opening track, “Sunny Side Up,” Stryke pivots to a laid-back slow-to-mid tempo piece called “Me Time,” which showcases his skill on the 88s in a bluesy kind of way. Back with the bounce and high-step, he tosses in “Java Jive,” that just keeps the groove motoring right along. There’s nothing like a funky acoustic piano in the lead role, also evidenced on this cut and elsewhere. Stepping back into the slow, soulful and bluesy mood, “Green Eggs” can create the imagery of one taking his/her lover’s hand and strolling along in a deep yet silent conversation between eyes. Yep, it’s that effective.

Stryke likes to alternate tempos often and quickly. One track takes off, the next settles back. “Up-N-Atm” is another mover that finds the pianist tickling the ivories in that honky tonk funk kinda way. “Glow” is not as laid-back as, say, “Me Time,” providing a bit more punch, if you will, but it is still more subdued than the jazzy up-tempo track that follows it, called “Double Shot.” This one is groove jazz alive if you ever wanted to term anything as groove jazz. It all just demonstrates how well Stryke knows the inner workings of a mood and a groove.

So it goes with this project. All in all, it is a very fine, very polished demonstration of how to work a piano for its worth. Sam Stryke should be a name one will surely remember after having Brunch with him. -- Ronald Jackson - thesmoothjazzride.com

Imagine inviting Dave Brubeck and Bruce Hornsby for a late Breakfast and they both sit down at the same piano… No doubt the result would be close to the magic of Sam Stryke’s. Having the jazz chops of Brubeck with the pop sensibility of Hornsby, Stryke’s new work BRUNCH is my album of the year so far! With just Larry Kohut on bass and Tom Hipskind on drums, this beautifully recorded album features the super cool keys of North Chicago resident Sam Stryke in a tribute to the weekend morning. Sam has a multitude of film and TV credits, award-winning ads and even music for the Oprah Winfrey Show. There is not a poor track on this album. Favorites include the striding groove “Sunny Side Up," the big sky feeling of “On my Way” and the rousingly uplifting “Anthem.” Grab yourself a copy before the toast pops up! ~Stewart Coxhead - smoothjazz.com

Sam Stryke did not wear plum Spandex, white gogo boots or a sparkly top on stage.

This cheering crowd in downtown Grand Rapids did not wave glow sticks.

We should add here the Grand Rapids Symphony was not Stryke’s opening act.

Hannah Montana fever roared through downtown Grand Rapids on Thursday but it passed over DeVos Performance Hall.

You might say Grand Rapids had the “Best of Both Worlds” on Thursday with Miley Cyrus doing her thing in Van Andel Arena while, just up the street, the Grand Rapids Symphony opened its Fifth Third Holiday Pops concerts in DeVos Hall for an audience of 1,251.

This year’s edition of the Fifth Third Holiday Pops isn’t a relic from the past. The show edged toward the contemporary with new arrangements, new music and New Age. Traditional tunes, such as “Sing We Now of Christmas” and “In the Bleak Midwinter” were dressed up in modern clothes. A medley of Hanukkah tunes had quiet, meditative moments.

Yet the show led by associate conductor John Varineau had all the comforts of home with DeVos Hall gaily decked for the holidays and the Grand Rapids Symphony playing with poise and polish.

Then, there were all the familiar faces, including St. Nick himself, who stopped by as expected.

Stryke, a pianist and composer from Grand Rapids now living in Chicago, was the special guest, playing original holiday music as well as his contemporary arrangements of old favorites. His solo piano numbers were simple and straightforward – George Winston fans take note. When the 1989 graduate of Forest Hills Central High School played his arrangement of “Stille, Stille,” the audience was still and silent. Stryke’s arrangement for piano and orchestra of “O Tannenbaum” had a fresh, direct appeal with a pop pulse beneath the orchestra background.

The Symphony Chorus was featured in a new Christmas song, “In the Flurry of a Snowfall,” by Grand Rapids area composer Nick Palmer, who also is the chorus’ accompanist. It was a joyful piece.

Varineau picked up his clarinet to solo in a new piece titled “Mystery in Bethlehem” written for him and the orchestra by local arranger David Culross.

Chorus director Pearl Shangkuan led her singers and the orchestra in another Culross arrangement of “One Small Child.” With the chorus lightly miked and Bill Vits providing a light pulse on drums set, Shangkuan led a delicate, sensitive performance. One of the highlights was Randol Bass’ medley, “A Feast of Carols,” an arrangement with the Grand Rapids Symphony delivering the original 1.0 version of surround sound in all its panoramic color.

Unlike that other show down the street, if you couldn’t make last night’s concert in DeVos Hall, there’s four more to come here in town. Ticket scalpers will have the night off. - by Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk, The Grand Rapids Press

To find your place in the world is hard enough, but finding a successful (emphasize successful) niche in the arts is even more of a challenge. Working musician is the job description parents often discourage their children from pursuing since it's much more likely they'll make it through medical school standing on their heads than make a good living as a musician.

There are exceptions... and composer-pianist and Grand Rapids native Sam Stryke is one of them, having established himself as a formidable talent in both the compositional and commercial ends of the industry. That's a double threat for you scoring at home.

Stryke graduated from Forest Hills Central in 1989 and Northwestern University in 1993, and while in the midst of a move to Chicago and all that academia, had time to sign with Atlantic Records and release a first solo work in 1991, the critically acclaimed In the Wind. Now married with two children, Stryke reflects on the construct of his career.

"Any career in the arts is hard. You have to have numerous projects going at any one time. And you need to be able to make a business in the arts, which all too often takes your focus off of the music. At any given point, no matter how busy I am, there's always something else I should be doing. This busyness/business makes it hard to keep my focus on the music. But that's why I love the concerts. When I'm performing live, it's all about the music."

While commercial work might not feed the should in the way live performance does, it seems to do an admirable job of setting the dinner table, and if you're alive, have a television or radio, and are even half paying attention, you've heard plenty of Stryke's commercial work (via Scandal Music in Chicago) in ads for Bud Light (recall the hilarious "Real Men of Genius" campaign?), Nintendo, McDonald's, Capital One, State Farm Insurance, and numerous others. In addition to the advertising gigs, Stryke has composed for independent films and TV themes like Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy prime-time special.

"I find both my independent artist projects and commercial work to be very satisfying," Stryke said. "They require different skill sets and approaches and there really isn't much of an intersection between the two... One of the best things about my commercial endeavors is that at the end of the day everyone high-fives each other and the track is done - no revisions, no remixes. It is creatively put to bed."

But if you're speaking of the heart, then make no mistake live performance is Stryke's creative reward for all those days in the commercial studios. "There's something really special about a live audience - the way they give back just by listening and all the other hard work seems really worth it."

Stryke's 2006 CD Christmas showed the musical affection he has for the holidays, and this month Grand Rapids audiences will have two chances to see him in concert performing "Christmas Memories" (with acoustic ensemble) at St. Cecilia's Music Center on December 2 and with the Grand Rapids Symphony, performing specially orchestrated selections from his Christmas album.

Performing in Grand Rapids is a really satisfying homecoming," Stryke said. "I feel very connected to the audience, and it is fun to perform for family and friends. And since the theme of my concert this year is 'Christmas Memories,' Grand Rapids is especially meaningful because that is where I spent my childhood and adolescent Christmases." - by Martin Zyla, On-The-Town

Some works of art are intensely labored over by their creators, while others seem to come as easily as if being dictated directly by the muse.

So perhaps it was the Spirit of Christmas Present communing with Chicago musician Sam Stryke when he began thinking of new lyrics for the traditional English carol “The Holly and the Ivy.”

“I heard lyrics in my head. They just snuck up on me, because I had no intention of writing lyrics,” said Stryke, a resident of Chicago’s Lake View. “They wrote themselves in a matter of minutes. As a creative person, when something flows, you hang on for the ride and hope you don’t miss anything.

Stryke’s version of “The Holly and the Ivy” is likely to be a high point of his Christmas Memories concert Nov. 29 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. The sole vocal number at the concert, it will be performed by a children’s choir assembled for the event by Anne Houseworth, a music teacher at Franklin Fine Arts Center Magnet School on Chicago Near North Side. Among the Franklin students in the choir will be Stryke’s son Xander.

On Stryke’s 2006 CD “Christmas,” “The Holly and the Ivy” is performed by Chicago singer-song-writer Alice Peacock, whose sterling rendition makes the song sound like a holiday favorite-to-be.

“Sam is a musician’s musician,” Peacock said. “He’s so talented. He is bound to always play something brilliant while really letting the players around him shine in the process. He creates a relaxing recording environment so that it’s easy for our individual personalities to come out in the music.”

Since graduating from Northwestern University in 1993, Stryke has taught piano to children, performed in local jazz clubs recorded three Cds, and acquired extensive experience composing musical themes and background scores for commercials. One of his higher-profile assignments was providing horror-movie-style score for a Bud Light commercial involving a hitch-hiker with an axe that premiered during the 2007 Super Bowl.

He has also composed music for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the satellite-radio “Oprah and Friends” show, and a prime-time TV special about Oprah’s Leadership Academy in South Africa.

Commercial work gives Stryke the opportunity to work with talented musicians and flex creative muscles while jumping through the hoops of deadlines.

“I love doing commercial music because the hectic pace of it, the urgency of it gets my creative juices flowing,” he said. “Sometimes the commercial is set to air on Thursday night on NBC and it’s Tuesday and we have just a couple of hours to do the commercial. It’s a lot of fun to work under that sort of pressure.”

That fast-paced environment is light-years away from the cozy, sentimental mood of Stryke’s Christmas music, which will be performed by his six-piece acoustic ensemble at the Skokie concert that will include guitar, bass and cello. Sustaining that hushed mood was a deliberate artistic strategy on his Christmas CD, he said.

“I didn’t want to do something that had a nice warm, reflective vibe and the next track would be a jarringly peppy version of ‘Jingle Bells,’” Stryke said. “So on the CD, I tried to keep the mood very consistent. I tried to create a soundtrack for the kinds of memories people want to build at Christmastime. This is something you can have on when you want to be at peace from the hectic pace of December and wrap yourself up in this musical blanket.” - by Jack Bess, Skokie Review

There's something both ironic and fitting about Sam Stryke's approach to Christmas music.

The Chicago-based, Grand Rapids-born pianist makes a large part of his living from writing the music for television and radio commercials, but his 2006 "Christmas" CD and shows such as Saturday's at the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks turn their back on the commercialism of the season.

"It will be somewhat jazzy, but more of a contemporary, sentimental vibe to it," he says by cell phone while driving home from Milwaukee to Chicago. "It will be a nice escape from the hectic pace of the holiday season, a stress-free concert that I hope will inspire people. Like somebody put it once: Have yourself a mellow little Christmas."

"A lot of times when I listen to Christmas CDs, my favorite tracks are warm and nostalgic," he says and lists such standards as "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "The Christmas Song" as among his favorites. "Then the next track will be a jarring version of 'Jingle Bells.' "

No need to worry about that on Stryke's "Christmas," a largely instrumental and low-key CD that will be the basis for his and his trio's concert Saturday at the Acorn.

"I wanted to create a warm, nostalgic mood so you could use my CD to create the memories of Christmas that you want, to escape from the hustle and bustle of the holiday," he says. "I sometimes call it a warm musical blanket for a cool winter evening."

The subdued CD features Stryke and his jazz-oriented band performing such traditional Christmas material as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "Deck the Halls" and "Good King Wenceslas," all as instrumentals.

"I wanted to go with traditional carols, and nothing that was a current pop song -- meaning in the last 100 years," the pianist says. "I wanted to take these traditional carols and put a fresh twist on them. The traditional carols are the heart of the holiday."

The only vocal track on the CD, "The Holly and the Ivy," features vocals by Chicago-based singer-songwriter Alice Peacock and original lyrics by Stryke for the centuries-old carol.

"I've always known that as an instrumental carol, so when I started to do my version, I intended it to be instrumental, but then I started hearing lyrics for it in my head," he says of "The Holly and the Ivy," which will be performed Saturday as an instrumental.

The carol's original lyrics focus on the Virgin Mary and Christ's ministry, whereas Stryke's lyrics paint a snow-covered Norman Rockwellian scene of Christmas.

"It kind of sums up the vibe of what I tried to do with the album," he says of his lyrics. "The song is an ode to Christmas and the warm and sentimental feelings that go with Christmastime."

The CD also includes two original instrumentals by Stryke, "Winter," which originally appeared on his 1991 CD, "In the Wind," and "Remembering December."

"For 'Remembering December,' which is one of my favorite compositions, I tried to create a soundtrack of my own memories of growing up and Christmas in Michigan," he says. "It's what I think of when I think back. It's very cinematic and nostalgic." - by Andrew S. Hughes, South Bend Tribune

Summary: The mood is mellow, but stimulating. Talent shines from every note.

I love reviewing holiday music. Oh, on occasion the task can get a tad tedious, but for the most part, it's a tremendously rewarding pursuit. And when I hear fine offerings like Sam Stryke's Christmas, all is right with the world.

Christmas is a fantastic, eclectic blend of new age and jazz, a marriage that is neither boring nor predictable. Stryke is an accomplished pianist whose intensely creative arrangements make these holiday standards vibrantly alive. Although there are two solo piano tracks (a densely layered, yet simple, Still, Still, Still and Stryke's warmly evocative, self-penned Winter), this album offers considerable variety beyond Stryke's exquisite keyboard action. For one thing, the single vocal cut is riveting, a revised Holly and the Ivy complete with Stryke's new lyrics and Alice Peacock's richly emotive voice (hmmmm.... does Alice have a holiday release?). On other tracks, Stryke's piano is joined by strings, brass and/or percussion, and the mix is elegant and outstanding, through and through. My favorite number might be the compelling Carol of the Bells/O Come, O Come, Emmanuel medley with its multiple layers of guitar, deep strings, and cool percussion intertwined with Stryke's ever-present piano foundation. Excellent!

Music like this just makes me feel good. The mood is mellow, but stimulating, in a most pleasant way. Talent shines from every note, and the production values are superb. Shine on, Sam Stryke; your Christmas has already brightened my holiday season and will be a good companion for many seasons to come! - by Carol Swanson, ChristmasReviews.com

At the start of the holiday season, it seems we are inundated with a barrage of Christmas CDs. It's enough to make anyone cringe at the thought of hearing one more version of "Deck the Halls," "O Tannebaum," or "Angels We Have Heard On High."

But Sam Stryke stands out from the crowd for not being afraid to add his own touch to these traditional standards, giving them a Norah Jones type feel that is rich in sound and quality. From beginning to end, Christmas never strays from its purpose-providing enjoyable, good music that goes well beyond what we shall hear at the malls this holiday.

Among the showstoppers is "The Holly and the Ivy"-which seems to be this year's top Christmas tune. The only song with vocals-the rest of the album is instrumental-Alice Peacock glides over Stryke's original lyrics to this English carol, creating the perfect Christmas picture of families coming together, sharing stories, and exchanging gifts as the snow falls outside. Talk about a holiday stress reliever-I would recommend snagging a few extra copies for family and friends as musical therapy through the upcoming hectic days.

A final bonus is that Stryke is homegrown, a 1989 Forest Hills Central High School graduate. He is an accomplished film, commercial, radio, and TV composer, and one listen to this CD and you'll certainly know why. A - by Joanne N. Bailey, On-The-Town

"I always liked Christmas music growing up, pulling out Christmas CDs and putting up the Christmas tree, and the atmosphere that created," said Stryke, 35. The 1989 graduate of Forest Hills Central High School spends most of his time writing music for television commercials.

"When I looked back at memories of childhood, Christmas music was tied into those memories. I'm instantly brought back when I hear it. For a long time, I've known that I wanted to do a Christmas CD and thought it would be a privilege to provide some music for someone else's memories."

Stryke's certainly done that with "Christmas," a sumptuous, piano-rich collection of tunes ranging from "Angels We Have Heard on High" to "The Holly and the Ivy," which features his original lyrics crooned by Chicago-area singer-songwriter Alice Peacock.

"The nostalgic thing is what I tried to capture a bit on my album. I decided to go for the nostalgic, the nice and warm, maybe melancholy," said Stryke, a graduate of Northwestern University who credits his musically inclined father, Curtis Struyk, who directed his church choir, for encouraging him to pursue a career in music. "I definitely wanted to have the full package of bringing back memories and creating new memories and sentimentality." - by John Sinkevics, The Grand Rapids Press

For Chicago pianist Sam Stryke, recording that first holiday album came down to musically expressing the timeless romance of the season and his fond recollections of Christmases as a child in the Grand Rapids area.

"I always liked Christmas music growing up, pulling out Christmas CDs and putting up the Christmas tree, and the atmosphere that created," said Stryke, 35. The 1989 graduate of Forest Hills Central High School spends most of his time writing music for television commercials.

"When I looked back at memories of childhood, Christmas music was tied into those memories. I'm instantly brought back when I hear it. For a long time, I've known that I wanted to do a Christmas CD and thought it would be a privilege to provide some music for someone else's memories."

Stryke's certainly done that with "Christmas," a sumptuous, piano-rich collection of tunes ranging from "Angels We Have Heard on High" to "The Holly and the Ivy," which features his original lyrics crooned by Chicago-area singer-songwriter Alice Peacock.

"The nostalgic thing is what I tried to capture a bit on my album. I decided to go for the nostalgic, the nice and warm, maybe melancholy," said Stryke, a graduate of Northwestern University who credits his musically inclined father, Curtis Struyk, who directed his church choir, for encouraging him to pursue a career in music. "I definitely wanted to have the full package of bringing back memories and creating new memories and sentimentality." - By John Sinkevics, The Grand Rapids Press