Janice Scroggins


Janice at the 1999 Waterfront Blues Festival

Janice at Flying Heart Records  

Muddy Awards

Related Links

"Janice Scroggins is a genius!" 
                    -- Curtis Salgado

    Think about all the great music you've ever heard. Think about the very best performers you've ever seen. Then think about Janice Scroggins.

    That's where Janice belongs, with the "cream of the crop," the very finest artists alive. She is every bit that good, and deserving of the opportunity.

    Don't take my word for it. Go out and see her play with Paul deLay and Jeff Minnieweather on a Wednesday night at The Flanders Street Brewpub.

    A couple of Portland's very top musicians are willing to testify about Ms. Scroggins: Curtis Salgado and Lloyd Jones.

    "She understands all genres of music. She can expand on any kind of music, using her unique personality and blend them together. Blues, Jazz, Soul, Funk or Gospel; she puts her own voice into it and expands it,"  Salgado says. "She can take you into a new direction, turn the song inside out and then bring it back into focus where you started from. First of all, she's a great human being. Second, she's 100% an African American woman. And, third, she's 100% WOMAN. She's a great piano player. She inspires me every single time I play with her."

    Lloyd Jones puts it like this. "She's probably my favorite person in the world! Music or otherwise. She's so aware of what's going on, musically. She'll "set you up" when its your turn to play. She reads you like a book. I get goose-bumps every time we play. She enriches your life every time she's around you. Very kind. With Janice.... you might not see her for a year, but when you play, it's just like yesterday. I try to get as close to her as I possibly can - she's the source!! She deserves all good things that come to her."

    Janice Scroggins was born in Idabel, Oklahoma. Her folks were always into music, with her grandmother being her major influence.

    "She took care of us kids when mom was at work as a dental technician. She was the "head of the house." We would hang out and she'd tell me stories about the past. Her relatives, you know, her mother and things she would do when she was growing up. Stories that I remember her telling me about the first time she heard "St. Louis Blues." My grandfather bought that record for piano. Either my aunt or my grandmother saw me crying and looking at the piano. They put me up on the piano stool and I quit crying. That's when my grandmother started giving me piano lessons.

BN: "How old were you?"Janice Scroggins and LLoyd Jones

JS: "About 2 1/2."

BN: "What kind of music were you learning?"

JS: "Spirituals, Gospel hymns, stuff like that."

BN: "How old were you when you first played for an audience?"

JS: "I don't remember it, but I was three. It was at church. I guess they liked it. I started playing there on special occasions. Especially when they had children's programs, about once a month. Also, Christmas and Easter, and during the summer, too."

BN: "When did you start playing outside of church?"

JS: "Umm ... Well, I was in my late teens. When I was growing up, you either played at church or school. The only other contact I had, with African American musicians, was on television. American Bandstand and Ed Sullivan were the only TV shows that had black performers on them. American Bandstand; that was more important than the news."

BN: "Can you recall the first performance you played where you knew the audience liked what you were doing?"

JS: "It all blends in. I was always playing. For speeches, assemblies, everything. I remember always being onstage as long as I can remember (laugh)!"

BN: "Did you ever get any scholarships or awards?"

JS: "Well, I did have a "sponsor." Lucy Williamston. She was the wife of the only Black dentist in our area, and she was the wife of my mother's boss. They were very wealthy people. She really liked my playing! When I was eight years old, she asked my mother if she could sponsor me, pay for my music and all my lessons. She was very kind to me."

    "I lived in Oklahoma until I was about 14, then I moved to Oakland, California. My younger brother and I went to visit my grandmother, who had moved there to take care of her older brother, who had a stroke. That was 1969."

Janice ScrogginsBN: "What was Oakland like for you?

JS: "People were, well, not as friendly as they were in Oklahoma. I was into the music. The music in church there was different - more Swing, more Rhythm and Blues happening there."

BN: "Did your being a musician help you make friends?"

JS: "Yeah!!"

BN: "Were you in a band back then?"

JS: "Well, when I was in junior high, we would play every once in a while in bands. There was a girl who played guitar, Alberta Jackson. We played for assemblies, before the school choir, stuff like that."

    "I had an opportunity to go out to some of the Jazz clubs around Oakland. I had a teacher named Jackie Hairston. She used to take me out. Through her I was able to meet people like Donald Byrd and Jon Hendricks. She was related to Jester Hairston, who was involved with a lot of the Black movies they were making at the time in Hollywood. He'd be on TV commercials once in a while. He traveled the world teaching music in schools. He'd work with choirs, teaching spirituals, black spirituals, Caribbean spirituals, the stuff Harry Belafonte made famous. He was a big influence on me. He liked what I was doing. He was very kind, very funny - great sense of humor."

BN: "How'd you get to Portland?"

JS: "I had visited my cousins up here when I was 19 and I really liked it, so I thought I'd move up here and try playing music. Let's see, the first week I got here, the first thing I did was join the Musician's Union. The second week I was here I met Thara Memory (the acclaimed composer/trumpeter). When I met him, I met everybody! He gave me a lot of standards to practice, a couple of times a week. I think the reason we got along is that we both appreciated all different kinds of music. The music was just in him!"

BN: "What do you mean, the music was just in him?"

JS: "There's no separation between him and the music ... being able to put it down -- that's him. It's like, music - the more you do it ... it's like religion, meditation. All those things. It becomes like breathing. It just comes naturally. You compliment whatever else is being played, and it seems so effortless. When you play with someone, certain things come out, and it just happens, you know? The more they trust you, the more you can feel free to express yourself. Then, you can gel."

BN: "Tell us about some of the projects you've worked on."

JS: "(Big laugh!) Well, Thara Memory was the first one. He had the Creative Jazz Ensemble and the Creative Orchestra. I played with both Time Sound and Youth Sound with Ken Berry. There was a band with Jan Celt, The Esquires. There was Ela, with a guy named Alan Nogran, he played a lot of salsa. I've played with Lloyd Jones and Curtis Salgado for a while. I'm playing off and on with Lloyd these days. I played with Norman Sylvester 10 years ago, when I was expecting my baby. Norman's a very kind man. That was a very difficult time for me. He kept me together, kept me working so I wouldn't have to go on welfare... I appreciate that so much!"

    "These days, I'm mostly playing in a trio with Paul deLay and Jeff Minnieweather. We play at The Flanders Street Brewpub every Wednesday night. It's old-timey Blues. We throw in a Gospel tune now and then.  Paul is great to play with. Great sense of humor, great attitude. Just a real kind person."

BN: "Tell us what it's like, playing onstage, when everything's clicking."

JS: "It's very magical. Like flying. It's like being in heaven, as far as I know. I know the audience. You think, you hear, you feel. You're very connected to what you're doing."

    Editor's Notes: Janice Scroggins is the winner of the 1996 Cascade Blues Association's "Muddy Award" for "Best Keyboards" - She is also in the CBA "Hall Of Fame" for winning that award three years in a row. She is truly an immense talent and certainly one of this town's favorite musicians!

© 1997 Cascade Blues Association