Emerging from Chicago’s music scene in 1972, Shadowfax ranked among the pioneering and most recognized acts in new age electronic music, founded by saxophonist Chuck Greenberg together with guitarist G.E. Stinson and bassist Phil Maggini. The initial trio began as a blues ensemble before shifting toward chamber jazz and folk textures, later incorporating medieval motifs—an apt direction for a band named after a steed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Drummer Stuart Nevitt joined in 1974, and the quartet released its first album, Watercourse Way, in 1976. Though the record made little immediate commercial headway, it cultivated a devoted audience that expanded after the group signed with Windham Hill. Breakthrough success came with the self-titled 1982 album, which climbed the upper reaches of the Billboard jazz chart; the follow-up, Shadowdance, appeared in 1983 and featured new members violinist Jamii Szmadzinski and pianist/synth player Jared Stewart. Subsequent years brought repeated lineup shifts, yet Greenberg and Maggini remained fixtures through the early 1990s. Because Greenberg shaped the band’s signature sound—most notably through his use of the Lyricon, an electronic wind instrument he helped develop—the ensemble dissolved after his fatal heart attack during a September 1995 vacation on California’s Santa Cruz Island.
