Greenville saxophonist Steven Galloway is a master of smooth jazz. You can hear it in his original material. His most recent EP, “Rooftop Melodies,” is full of laid-back grooves and velvety tenor-sax playing. Live onstage, Galloway mixes it up, bringing in covers of artists like Patti LaBelle and Michael Jackson. His weekly Thursday night shows at Blues Boulevard Jazz in Greenville are typically packed with fans enjoying his singular touch on the sax.
His music has been played on BET, VH1 and ESPN, but Galloway truly feels at home on the concert stage.
“When I step onstage,” Galloway says, “my job is to make people feel good and experience the moment and forget about what they have going on during the day or what they have coming up. I let everything go. I give it my all, whether there are two people in the crowd or 3,000. I just make sure I interact with the crowd and make them feel good.”
Galloway actually wanted to be a drummer back when he was in middle school, and to this day, he’ll still hop behind the kit occasionally. He also plays piano. But once he saw his teacher playing saxophone in middle-school band class, there was no looking back.
“It was the first time I’d seen someone play the saxophone and play it skillfully,” he says, “and I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll go for that! I’ll play whatever saxophone you have.’”
Galloway says he was instantly drawn to the saxophone.
“It’s a very attractive instrument, and it drew my attention,” he says. “And once I pick up something, I just look at different inspirations, to see how I could be better at it.”
Those inspirational figures include Charlie Parker, Hank Mobley and Thelonious Monk, but one figure closer to home was veteran Columbia saxophonist and instructor Robert Gardiner. Galloway studied under Gardiner while pursuing a degree in music from Lander University.
“It was a very tough experience,” he says of studying with Gardiner. “He was never like, ‘You’re doing great!’ It was more constructive criticism that I needed to hear, to help me grow as a musician and mature as an adult. In and outside of the music realm he helped me mature a lot. He has a great reputation as far as his skill for playing, and he had me studying the greats. Basically, he introduced me to different genres of music to open my mind a little bit as far as my playing.”
In addition to his weekly Blues Boulevard Jazz gig, Galloway says he’s working on new music with fellow saxophonist and producer Vandell Andrew. But regardless of the forum, Galloway says his greatest goal is to affect people with his music.
“My goal is to give them a great experience and have them go out changed,” he says. “I feel like I would like to be like a drug, where people have to come back and get that fix.”
