About the Composer:
Jon Grindstaff experienced his first serious encounter with music learning the violin at the tender age of 12 in the relatively small midwestern town where he was born, near St. Louis. Music changed everything. Thanks to a wonderful, dedicated teacher named Linda Beane, he was soon swept away by the brilliant musical minds of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
A few years later, Jon found himself blessed with the opportunity of playing in the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra under the direction of internationally renowned conductor Leonard Slatkin - currently the Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Jon also had the privilege of playing in the Southern Illinois University Orchestra while still in high school, and studied privately there with the Orchestra’s conductor, also thanks to Linda Beane.
All the while, he was also becoming a passionate and accomplished electric bass player. After high school, he played pop and jazz music in nightclubs in and around St. Louis and before long, was working as a session player, composer and arranger in a few recording studios around the city.
Moving to New York in 1980 to continue his musical adventures, Jon spent first few years playing around town with various original pop bands, but eventually returned to his first love, studio work. For more than twenty years, Jon worked as a composer and arranger in New York creating music for television and radio commercials, often producing hundreds of pieces of music per year. His music could be heard nationally and internationally behind products including Pepsi, Visa, FedEx, Duracell, Infiniti, Disney, Sega and many, many others.
During that time, he had the great privilege of working with some of the best musicians and singers anywhere in a wide range of styles, writing and recording everything from Japanese folk music to full orchestras, and just about everything in between.
In 2008, after leaving his busy New York music life behind, Jon launched his own personal music project of mostly traditional jazz-based tunes with a refreshing dose of lounge sensibility, all from his own uniquely-colored perspective, Galaxy Lounge.