Dave Greenslade was one of the founding members of the jazz rock fusion and progressive rock outfit Colosseum, and he’s also known for his work in his own band Greenslade, formed in 1976.
Greenslade was born on January 18, 1943, in Woking, Surrey, into a musical family. His mother was a pianist who sang in the local choir, and his father ran a dance club in the 1930s, but he was not the composer Arthur Greenslade, as has sometimes been wrongly assumed.
At 13, he met Jon Hiseman and Tony Reeves and joined the local church youth group in Eltham, where the family had moved. As teenagers, he and Hiseman played together with Wes Minster Five.
In late 1968, Greenslade joined Geno Washington And The Ram Jam Band, but he left after four months to join Hiseman and Reeves in Colosseum, whose jazz and progressive rock suited his musical passions. He was influenced by the likes of Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and later by Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck and Joe Zawinul, among others. Greenslade remained a regular member of Colosseum right up until 2015.
In 1972 he joined the prog-jazz band If, which also featured Dennis Elliott, later the drummer of Foreigner, but he didn’t play on any of their albums. That same year he formed his own band, Greenslade, initially with Reeves on bass, drummer Andrew McCulloch, who had played on King Crimson’s album Lizard, and fellow keyboardist Dave Lawson. The band recorded four albums: “Greenslade” and “Bedside Manners Are Extra” in 1973, both featuring stunning artwork by Roger Dean, “Spyglass Guest”, which hit number 34 on the UK albums chart in 1974, and “Time And Tide” in 1975, before the band broke up in early 1976.
In 1976 he released his first solo album, “Cactus Choir”, on which Roger Dean once again contributed his illustrations. In 1979 came the exceptionally polished and refined “The Pentateuch Of The Cosmogony”. It was a joint project with the artist Patrick Woodroffe, and it was a double album. It came out in a hardcover edition.
Greenslade worked in television and stepped away from public life in the 1980s. He composed music for series like “Gangsters” and “A Very Peculiar Practice”, and his collaboration with the late fantasy author Terry Pratchett on “From The Discworld” in 1994 put him back in the spotlight.
In 1994 he rejoined Colosseum, and on his 50th birthday he was also surprised by former members of Greenslade, with whom he revived the band. Greenslade, Reeves and John Young recorded the album “Large Afternoon” in 2000, though it only came out in 2002. The band toured in 2001 with drummer John Trotter. Greenslade went back on the road with Colosseum in 2015, but he wasn’t part of the band when it reunited in 2020.
In 2011 he released his last solo album, “Routes/Roots”, and together with David Thomas, a former guitarist of Blonde On Blonde, he formed the duo G&T, with whom he released the self-titled album “G&T” in 2022.
