I was born in Iowa City, Iowa on July 28, 1989 and have lived here ever since. I was born Kory “Chase” Garrett to parents Russ Garrett and Katherine Burian. My sister, Kelly Garrett, was born five years earlier on September 28, 1984. I later changed my name to Chase because my class mates would constantly poke fun at the fact that my name was spelled with a “K” instead of the usual “C,” plus Chase is difficult to misspell.
I became interested in the piano when I was about eight years old. I received a 56 key Yamaha keyboard for Christmas which came with two free lessons at West Music. The lessons were either going to go to my sister or myself and she didn’t want them so I took them. At my first lesson, my teacher played a classical piece, “Fur Else” and gave me a few exercises to work on. The next week I brought in a CD that my grandma had given me entitled, “Joplin: Greatest Hits,” and asked my teacher if she could teach me how to play, “Maple Leaf Rag.” She agreed to teach me the tune if I worked hard on it.
 She’d play a couple of bars then I would repeat back what I remembered. I did this for the rest of the song using the CD occasionally. Because of this I play by ear and cannot read notes that well. For me to read a page of music I have to go through all of the sayings such as Every Good Boy Does Fine and Great Big Dogs Fight Animals for each note and chord, but by doing this I can memorize the song as I work through it. A couple of weeks later my teacher introduced me to a blues song called, “Blue Jeans.” I fell in love with it and would play it for hours each night. As I played the tune I would experiment with other notes and chords to see what sounded good to me and when I discovered something, I would play it again and again to memorize not only the lick or chord, but also the position of my fingers so that even if I did forget what I was playing, my hands might remember. I would also transpose what I knew to other keys as to give myself more branches.
 For the next couple of years all I did was play piano and experiment. A few years down the road my parents filed for divorce and finally split up in early 2001. When I was in sixth grade I formed my first blues band called, “Midnight Blues.” It consisted of myself and a drummer named Isaac Doucette or Bob as we called him. We practiced at a friend’s house on the weekends and got our first gig in May of 2001 opening up for a local funk and blues band called, “Shade of Blue,” or as their known now, “The Funk Daddies.” Over the next couple years we played a few gigs here and there but mostly laid low and got good at practicing.
 Upon entering eighth grade in 2003, my sister graduating the year before, my parents dating again, and myself alone, I fell into a quite state of depression. I’d bury myself in the blues every night, and wake to the agony of consciousness in the morning. In July 2004, I recorded my first CD in Solon, Iowa called, “Songs in the Key of C & G.” It was more of a demo than an actual CD, but it felt good to finally have something other than tapes that I recorded myself, to make comparisons to. Late that year I started performing at a local bar and restaurant called, “The Mill.” I’d play mostly on open mike nights and a few Sunday brunches, but occasionally I’d open up for a band or two. I also played at another local restaurant called, “Flannigan’s,” at that time.
In early 2005, I performed in a talent show at Regina High school, the school I’m currently attending, and afterwards was asked to perform at the up and coming school play, “Li’l Abner,” and a Christian woman’s group meeting at Melrose Meadows retirement home. I accepted the invitation's. At the end of May that year I performed my first paying gig at a graduation party for the brother of the sax player in my band, Tim Horrihan. Later that summer I was asked to perform at another retirement home on the 4th of July by a man named Bernie Daly. At the end of that month, I recorded my second CD, “88 Keys and Nowhere to Go” which consisted of twelve original songs and was even played on Iowa’s jazz radio station 88.3 KCCK by Bob Dorr of the “Blue Band.”
 Over the next couple months I practiced singing in private while playing a few more gigs around town and for the schools Christmas dinner in December. I sang for the first time in front of an audience in early 2006 at The Mill, with my current band, “Chase ‘N’ The Blues” consisting of myself, Bob, and a blues guitar player I met the previous summer at jazz band camp, named Caitlin Cross. In May of that year, I performed at String works School of Music’s Acoustic Music Showcase at the Shakespeare Theatre in City Park, Iowa City, and later that month at Market Days in LeClaire, Iowa.
 A few months later in July, I met up with a Cincinnati blues and boogie piano man named Ricky Nye who I heard on a CD. He was playing at a party in Des Moines, Iowa for one of the bass player’s, Nick Lloyd’s, close friends. He let me get up and play with him on some of his songs and even let me perform a couple of my own with Nick. He invited me to play a couple of tunes at the, “Eighth Annual Blues and Boogie Piano Summit,” in Newport, Kentucky on November 11th. In early September, I played a weekend at the Regina Fall Fun Festival and was reported on TV9 news, WGN news, and in the Iowa City Gazette the following week.
 A few months later in November, I traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio to meet up with Ricky Nye and Nick Lloyd. I met them at “Arnold’s Bar and Grill” in downtown Cincinnati along with Eric Jan-Overbeek, Michael Pewny, Julian Phillips, and Chris Davidson all of which would be performing at the Piano Summit. That night each of us performed a couple of our own tunes to promote the show. The next night I played at the “Eighth Annual Blues and Boogie Piano Summit” held at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky. That night I was invited to play a couple of gigs in Indiana and Chicago with a blues harp player named Tom Moore and his band “Little Frank and the Premiers.” He also invited me to play at an event he’s putting together with Ricky Nye, Barrelhouse Chuck, and Pinetop Perkins in the spring.
 In the past couple of months I’ve been working on my next CD, while talking to Phil Leming about performing in the 2007 Cincinnati Blues Festival. Again if you have any questions please feel free to ask. Talk to you soon!
 
 

 

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