Leawood musician had passion for life

Jean Grevet, 58, cared deeply for city he called home

By LAURA UHLMANSIEK

The Kansas City Star

When family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Jean Grevet, a normal funeral service would have been inappropriate for a man who had led such a remarkable life.

Instead, the top jazz musicians in Kansas City played throughout the service Sunday as people spoke about Jean and how he had shared his passion for life and shown compassion for others. The service for Jean took place at D.W. Newcomer’s Sons. Jean died at the age of 58 from a massive heart attack.

“There was nobody in this world that was more alive than he was,” said Sharon Grevet, his wife. “He felt things very deeply. He was emotional, but that’s because he cared so deeply.”

Jean was a native of Cannes, France, where he first earned fame as a bass player, but his talents as a musician later led him in travels across Europe and eventually to the United States, where he finally settled in Leawood.

Music was one of Jean’s passions, and it was something he took seriously.

“It’s a lifetime commitment to being a musician, but you’re not compensated for it,” Sharon said. “They live such a fragile existence, they make so little money, they have no benefits and they have very little respect. So he felt very, very strongly about music and about musicians.”

He loved to make people laugh, and he was always willing to open his house to people who were in need of help or support.

“If they were in trouble, he would sit with them and talk with them for hours. If they needed money, he would lend them money. If they needed work, he would try and find him work,” Sharon said.

He made Leawood his home and was the driving force in the fight to keep the Leawood City Council from allowing a developer to turn the Leawood Country Club into a neighborhood.

“He wasn’t alone in his belief that the actions that the City Council of Leawood took to allow this developer to destroy the last green space of any significance in old Leawood was a travesty, was a sin,” said Doug Carter, a friend of Jean’s.

Jean grew up in Cannes, and got his start in jazz performance when he was 13. He played bass for two local bands, which were so popular that they played backup for John Lee Hooker and Hazel Scott when they performed in town.

Jean even served as inspiration for cartoonist Peyo, who modeled the bass player Smurf after Jean, Sharon Grevet said.

In his early 20s, he played bass for the European tour of the musical “Hair” for three years. He later joined the jazz fusion band Cortex, which earned fame throughout Europe.

In 1976, he moved to the Caribbean and played bass for a band playing at Club Med in Martinique. It was there that he met Sharon, who was working at Club Med.

“It was just a thunderbolt from the first time that I was on the dance floor and the band was playing. The band took a break and he came and sat down next to me, and he said, ‘It’s my birthday next week, do you want to go out?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and we were together ever since.”

The two married in December of 1977 and lived in Philadelphia for six years. Although he didn’t know a word of English when he moved to the United States, he quickly taught himself by watching television. He studied composition and upright bass at Temple University, and taught electric bass at Neupauer Conservatory.

The couple then moved to Los Angeles, where Jean continued to perform and began a second career as a French translator. He also learned to play tennis, one of his great passions, Sharon said.

It was 15 years before Jean decided he was ready to apply for U.S. citizenship, and it was not a matter he took lightly.

“He loved this country, but he really wanted to give it some long, hard thought to decide whether he could in all honesty pledge to defend and protect this country as his own,” Sharon said.

They had lived in Los Angeles for 12 years when the Northridge earthquake destroyed their home, and Jean and Sharon made a big change and moved to Kansas City.

“He felt that the music scene here was better than anywhere else in the world,” Sharon said.

Jean also started up the band Nouba, along with Tom DeMasters, Joe Cartwright, Ray DeMarchi and Duck Warner. He and his wife started up a French-English translation service, called GLS.

“He was a smart, talented, giving, good-natured man, and I will miss him very much,” Sharon said.