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"Working with Dave came out of the fact that everybody was working with everybody in all of these combinations. I had jammed with Boyd. Stefan played upright bass in a jazz quartet that I founded called The Thin Men, in which I played saxophone. I had some musical involvement with everybody in the band prior to DMB even forming. My relationship with Dave really came out of three people: John, Dawn and [Dave Matthews' advisor] Ross Hoffman. Basically, because Ross wanted to have a really good demo of Dave's material, he brought him into my studio starting in October of 1990. We made a four-song demo that had 'The Song That Jane Likes,' 'Recently,' 'I'll Back You Up' and 'BOWA.' John came in and played trumpet on "I'll Back You Up," Kevin Davis played percussion on 'Jane' I played Stick on 'Jane' and on 'Recently' and on 'I'll Back You Up'. And I sang backup vocals on 'Jane' and I played saxophone on 'Recently' and 'I'll Back You Up,' and I did some drum programming. The one unsuccess was 'I'll Back You Up.' I basically kind of insisted on an approach that was too bombastic and heavy-handed. Especially with the drum stuff. It just wasn't necessary."

Greg is probably Greg's biggest critic. But this isn't a self-effacing act, he's pretty critical of most music. He's just not afraid to turn the lens on his own work. It seems likely that this is a result of his extensive work in both the technical and the artistic sides of music. He's produced nearly a dozen albums. His engineering experience far surpasses that of the average artist, making him uniquely qualified for his jack-of-all-trades approach to his own music.

As he got better and better at the Chapman Stick, Greg became more and more well-respected as a jazz performer, and something of a minor deity in Stick circles. Greg is one of the most well-known Stick players, largely thanks to his work with Dave Matthews Band.

That work could have been much more far-reaching had he decided to remain working with the members of DMB. He had fallen into a role with the band that easily could have led to him becoming a member of the band. But after playing keyboards with them at a rehearsal, he simply decided that it wasn't the role that he wanted to play. Greg continued to be involved, though, doing engineering for all of Dave's studio demos, "Minarets" in 1992 and played Stick on demo versions of "Warehouse" and "Ants Marching." He even played on "Minarets" on DMB's first album, "Remember Two Things."

"Ross [Hoffman] and Dave and I would work very hard on these things. Ross was extremely involved with what Dave was doing. They worked very closely together. It was not always an easy relationship... Ross certainly pushed him into acting a little more seriously on his talents and creativity."

In the first months of 1992, DMB drummer Carter Beauford, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds and Greg Howard played a few gigs as "Side Two." The quartet performed a couple of times that winter at Charlottesville's Jazz Club to packed houses, playing DMB songs and some of Greg's. Unfortunately, the only show that Greg recorded came out blank; no tapes of the shows exist.

"If I regret anything," he explains, "it's that we didn't get to explore that group more. It was a really great group."

Greg continued to have musical encounters with DMB, playing with Dave at a few of the Live Arts Coffeehouses, doing a duet with him at Miller's ("Lie In Our Graves" debuted at that particular performance, titled "Peanuts"), and recording Dave's performances around town in the very early days of Dave Matthews Band. Greg even sat in with the band on July 6th and July 7th of 1993, filling in on Stick for injured bassist Stefan Lessard.

Greg also continued his solo work, as well as his musical relationship with Tim Reynolds. The two had gained a reputation as a solid duo, starting with their release of "Sticks and Stones: A Collection of Spontaneous Improvisations" in 1987.

"Working with Tim is very intuitive for me. Sticks & Stones had many moments of sheer brilliance. But I couldn't find people here that were listening to the kind of music that I was listening to, so they could understand where I was coming from."

Greg appears to derive the most joy from playing some of his more complex, solo pieces. Watching him at work is very much like watching Tim Reynolds play guitar: it's hard to believe that all of that music is coming from a single instrument. Normally, songs like this would have to be performed by several musicians communicating closely, the result of years of playing together. Amazingly, Greg can do this on his own.

He released his first solo album, "Whispers," in 1987, just two years after getting his first Stick. In 1990, he released "Touch," for which Dave Matthews provided the artwork. (There's a collector's item.) He and Tim created two albums, "Sticks and Stones" and "Transmigration," both of which helped cement their reputation as a solid duo. Greg released "Stick Figures" in 1993, and "Shapes" in 1994. The following year, "Code Magenta" with Leroi and Dawn Thompson. In 1996 came the release of "Sol," Greg's first full-band recording, which included Robert Jospé, John D'earth, Darrell Rose, Tim Reynolds and Jeff Decker. This Latin-based recording was a departure from Greg's primarily jazz-based recordings, and really showed off Greg's abilities as a composer. In 1998 he released "Water on the Moon," the result of a one-hour solo improv session at Miller's. The Washington Post's Mike Joyce describes it best:

"At first blush [this] latest release, a nearly hour-long solo improvisation may seem an indulgent exercise. Yet it soon becomes clear that Howard has both the technique and imagination to pull it off."

That pretty well describes most everything that Greg does: he has both the technique and the imagination to pull it off. What's even more impressive is the frequency with which he has released his albums: on average, one every eighteen months, over the course of eleven years, and one per year for the last seven years.

In late 1997, Greg got a call: Would he like to come out to the California studio and record on the Crowded Streets sessions? There's only one answer to that, and Greg found himself in the studio a short time later, faced with a nearly-finished album. (And also faced with Tim Reynolds, who was recording his contribution to the album while in the buff.) After some discussion, it was determined that he should play Stick on "Groove in Seven" (released as "Dreaming Tree"), a song that was already quite lush. In fact, after Greg's part was added, all 48 tracks were filled.

Come the 1998 tour to promote "Before These Crowded Streets," Greg asked Leroi for tickets to see their Virginia Beach show. Not only did Leroi provide tickets, but he invited Greg to perform with them. The band had not yet performed "Dreaming Tree," mostly because the prospect was so daunting. With Greg there, they played it for the first time. That show went so well that he went on tour with them, playing a total of eight shows. For the first few shows, he only played a few songs, but in San Jose, he performed with them for the entire evening. Greg had a great time.

"I didn't have to play the way that I normally play, which is to play all of these different parts. I could just be a part of the band sound... That first Camden show was the best show of all the ones that I did with them. The energy of the band was so high from the Virginia Beach show. Everybody was really excited about doing this other show. 'Now we know what to expect, so let's go for it a little more.' The Beauty of Wynona, One Sweet World...those two tunes especially were really nice. When we started doing stuff with them in California, we did Minarets, and that was really nice. As fun as it was, I didn't feel as if I was ready to be on stage with them doing these gigs. I felt a little nervous about it. It was weird to play with this band that was so tight, that had been playing so much. When I would make a mistake, I really felt it. What was terrifying was when I went out in San Jose to do the whole show. It was like being in the Lakers or something. It was really a thrill. It was really nice and generous of them to ask me to do it. They're very supportive of the people that they know. At the shows that we were playing in California, Tim was there, too. That was a lot of stuff going on."

As exciting as these performances were to Greg, they didn't create the environment that he finds conducive to music. Every time that I've seen Greg perform, I've found that he's very attentive to the audience. Between songs, he's scanning the audience, looking into the faces of the fans, trying to gauge their involvement in the performance. In the venues that DMB has performed in for the past few years (think Giants Stadium), that's just not something that can be done.

"For me," Greg explains, "it's almost impossible to make a connection with the audience in a situation where there's that many people. That's the reason that I play music. I don't play to entertain people, I play to try to convey something to them."

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