Rotary Totem

Words & Music by James Grigsby

J.E. Grigsby founded Rotary Totem in 1984 as a production company for his creative projects, including his 2016 novella, Vexations and his recent musical projects, Illusions (2022) and Solar Maxima (2024) as well as albums with the musical ensembles Motor Totemist Guild, NIMBY, and U Totem. 

Grigsby’s musical background is diverse, encompassing studies and performances in electronic music, Renaissance polyphony, progressive rock, post-Webern serialism, Balinese gamelan, and punk-jazz during the 1970s. This wide-ranging foundation influenced his compositional style, characterized by the fusion of contrasting elements such as high and low-brow musical styles, electronic and acoustic instruments, and improvisation with composition. 

As Glenn Astarita noted in All About Jazz, “Grigsby’s music while demanding and complex is also liable to become light-hearted or whimsical...Grigsby’s shrewd and at times roguish compositional style is strikingly impressive; hence, his somewhat legendary status in the so-called progressive music industry."


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