Local jazz pianist Steven Feifke makes history at the Grammys
LEXINGTON - A local jazz pianist and Berklee professor is making history, becoming the youngest person to win a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, putting him in the same playing field as the greats.
Steven Feifke's music career began just like any other, sitting down at the piano for the first time as a little boy playing through lessons from his mother.
"I started playing piano when I was 4 years old," he told WBZ-TV. "My mom was my first teacher and she always used to tell me that from even way before then that I would shout in the back of the car for music."
As lessons progressed, Feifke gravitated towards jazz, saying the genre's adaptability got him hooked.
"I think what draws me to jazz music is the ever-changing musical landscape," he said. "It's fun. It's fun to improvise."
His love for music guided him into adulthood, where at 31, he has become the youngest person to win a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for "Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra."
"When Amanda Gorman called our name, it was such a huge rush of energy," Feifke said. "It was just like everything was replaced in that one moment again by that 'oh my God' feeling."
Though exciting, Feifke said he didn't go into music to win awards, rather for recognition within the music community where he now finds himself among the greats.
"The other winners on that list, being that it includes people like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, even Quincy Jones and Henry Mancini, sort of branching out of the jazz world. To have my name mentioned on that list at all is extremely humbling."