One passion isn't enough, he says. So Glenn Bryan balances two of them: music and service to the community. He has played alongside saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. and renowned guitarists John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana. As Penn's director of city and community relations, he has worked to keep the dialogue between the University and the community open, engaging both sides in a productive relationship.
Glenn Bryan and Friends played the last of this summer's live performances in Malcolm X Memorial Park on 52nd and Pine streets. The audience, softly moving to the rhythms, listened to the quintet perform some classic jazz tracks, including some from the repertoire of Bryan's favorite jazz musician, John Coltrane. And Bryan, in a dark green shirt, sitting in the middle, jammed on two keyboards simultaneously -- one for each hand.
But perhaps a more reliable place to find Bryan is in Penn's Office of City and Community Relations, which he has directed for over a decade. That's where, in full administrative apparel, he works on "keeping the dialogue going" between the community and the University. His connection to Penn is more than just administrative -- after all, he was an undergraduate here and went on to receive his graduate degree from the School of Social Work.
And his connection to the community is even stronger -- he has lived in the neighborhood almost his entire life.
Bryan plays several gigs a month nowadays, both solo and with his band -- Glenn Bryan and Friends, or just Friends for short. He regularly performs at Zanzibar Blue -- an upscale restaurant and jazz bar downtown -- as well as at local venues and even foreign jazz festivals. He is currently working on recording a CD.
Bryan's musical career started when he was 8 years old and a budding pianist. Growing up on West Philadelphia's 52nd Street, one of the meccas of jazz culture, had a profound and enduring influence on him.
"Right on 52nd Street is where I saw Coltrane, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins -- you know, the stars," Bryan says. "I wish I could just have pictures and just drop you in on 52nd Street during that time. ... It was unbelievable."
As an undergraduate at Penn, Bryan played in a rock band, which he remembers with a bit a self-deprecating humor, saying that its sound was "compromised" by the old keyboards. In retrospect, he is still surprised that people actually listened to them.
Now, he plays mostly classic and Latin jazz, but his musical experimentation has led him from rhythm and blues and spiritual melodies to classical music and fusion jazz. And these diverse influences can all be heard in his music.
Bryan has played with some of the contemporary best. Besides Carlos Santana, Grover Washington Jr. and John McLaughlin, he has also jammed alongside Freddie Hubbard, John Howard, Dave Koz and George Duke. But it was his experience with Santana that he treasures most to this day. It was in the early '90s that he had a chance to perform onstage with Santana at a benefit for Latino culture in Philadelphia. Afterwards, he had the opportunity to spend some time with Santana, just talking.
"I always loved his playing. One of the things he really knows how to do ... is be able to penetrate and play with great feel -- that's what every musician should strive to do. Music is an art form. It's a form of communication," he says. "I am not saying I achieve that, but I try to."
But those who listen to Bryan think he does just that.
"He is just a talented musician and he has really worked hard to perfect his craft," says Joe Watkins, a CNN political analyst and Bryan's old college friend. "Because of Glenn, I now have an appreciation of jazz. ... He is the one that got me to explore musically and grow my musical tastes."
In the '80s, Bryan played smooth jazz before it "was mass-produced and microwaved." And prior to that, he specialized in fusion jazz, but found general audiences not receptive. The music was too intense and personal -- and he and his former band weren't landing enough gigs.
But despite his wanderings in the realm of jazz, Bryan often returns to his formative experience for inspiration.
When he was just 15, his father sneaked him into a club to hear one of jazz's greatest.
"That was one of the most memorable things -- hearing the incredible John Coltrane in a very close room," Bryan remembers. "My old man slipped me into the club. He said, 'You gotta hear this guy.' ... His music was just from another place, different from anyone else I [have ever] heard."
He says that if he had the chance to see anyone perform live, it would be Coltrane -- all over again.
"I wish he was around so you can hear him. His tone was just fabulous -- it just couldn't get any better," he says with his eyes closed. "His tone had that Eastern feel to it."
Bryan's most stable gig is on Sunday mornings.
He is the minister of music at Christ Church, located at 20 North American St.
"Glenn is able to minister to the congregation in such a way that he lifts the spirits. He instinctively knows what songs, what hymns to play to complement the sermon," says his wife, Nina Bryan. "His music ministry is beyond words."
The church also serves as Bryan's practice studio. If anyone wants to jam with him at any hour of the night, he says, that's the place to go.
But his dedication to his church goes well beyond the ministering of the music. Watkins recounts Bryan's efforts to rescue the church when it fell on hard times.
"Some years ago, the church came under some difficulty and was having some trouble getting members to attend, and their minister left. ... Glenn took it upon himself to head the effort to find a minister and to bring the church back. The church was scheduled to be closed," Watkins says. "Because of Glenn's effort, the church today is strong and vibrant and has a couple of hundred active members. ... Glenn will never tell you that he did that, but that's what Glenn Bryan brought to bear."
And that's the kind of effort that people who know him best say is symbolic of who he is as a person.
People often tell Bryan that his job, director of city and community relations, is custom-made for him. It unites the two communities that are closest to him -- West Philadelphia and Penn.
Bryan is basically the go-to man with regard to community concerns and outreach projects.
According to Director of the Center for Community Partnerships Ira Harkavy, Bryan played an essential role in the West Philadelphia Partnership, and has been instrumental in the University's work in local public schools and in supporting the arts.
Bryan is a West Philadelphia product himself, having attended Sayre Middle School and West Philadelphia High School, and living most of his life in the area.
"I am always out there. I am in West Philadelphia. I live there," Bryan says. "I know families on many, many blocks from here to 63rd Street."
Bryan says he is never off-duty.
"I can go into a supermarket on a Saturday in the early morning hours, and someone always says, 'Hey, Glenn, can I talk to you about a concern or an idea?'"
When he came back to Penn in the early '90s, after spending some years working with disadvantaged groups in the city, he says the job was a perfect fit.
"He is uniquely knowledgeable about the community," says Harkavy, who helped hire Bryan. "Not just having studying it, but having lived there. ... He is an enormous source of connectedness."
Often, Bryan looks out of his office window onto Sansom Common, which was just an empty parking lot when he accepted his current position. For him, the construction of Sansom Common was the "exemplary model" for economic inclusion -- it incorporated job creation with the procurement of goods and services locally from the community.
"Glenn is one of the key reasons that [the economic inclusion project] happened. He is really passionate about this, and part of it is because he is from West Philadelphia and knows the community better than most ever will," Vice President of Business Services Leroy Nunery says. "He deserves a lot of recognition. He is an unsung hero around here."
Most of all, Bryan says that he aims to keep the dialogue between the community and University continuing. But he admits that there is still a long way to go -- not everything the University does benefits or is appreciated by its neighbors.
"I don't really look at the accomplishments so much as what needs to happen," he says. "I treat this job as a mission. ... I can be anywhere -- this is a mission, and this is a passion."
