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Bob Gluck
The latest of Gluck's nine recordings are “Infinite Spirit: Revisiting Music of the Mwandishi Band” (FMR, 2016; with Billy Hart, Eddie Henderson, and Christopher Dean Sullivan), and two sets of duets with, respectively, fellow pianist Aruan Ortiz (”Textures and Pulsations,” 2012) and saxophonist Andrew Sterman (”Tropelets,” 2014), both on Ictus Records.
Gluck is author of two books published by University of Chicago Press, “You’ll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band” (2012) and “The Miles Davis ‘Lost’ Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles” (2016). A revised Italian edition "Il Quintetto perduto e altre rivoluzioni" (Miles Davis, the Lost Quintet and other revolutions) was released by Quodlibet Chorus in November 2020.
Gluck’s collaborators have included Eddie Allen, Michael Bisio, Jane Ira Bloom, Billy Hart, Christopher Dean Sullivan, Ken Filiano, Joe Giardullo, Eddie Henderson, Karl Latham, Ras Moshe Burnett, Warren Smith, Aruan Ortiz, Neil Rolnick, Dean Sharp, Andrew Sterman, and Tani Tabbal.
Gear
Steinway M piano, Moog PianoBar, Moog Little Phatty, Roland and Studiologic keyboard controllers, Mac laptop with custom performance interfaces programmed with Max/MSP.
Tags
Bob Gluck: And every fleck of russet
by Karl Ackermann
Julliard-trained Bob Gluck is an accomplished composer, religious leader, and academician. He is the author of two books published by the University of Chicago Press, You'll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band (2012) and The Miles Davis 'Lost' Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles (2016). Gluck has also written an e-book, The Musical World of Paul Winter (intelligent arts, 2019), and an ongoing blog. His musical portfolio is distinguished with highly original, multiple genre projects featuring ...
read moreBob Gluck: Early Morning Star
by Jerome Wilson
On this release, pianist Bob Gluck mixes the realms of classical music and jazz in interesting ways. The formal, declarative music produced by Gluck, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and vocalist Andrea Wolper is given flow and earthiness by the rhythmic pull of bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Tani Tabbal. The front-line combination fluidly rises and falls through pieces like the sparkling “A Time of Singing," with Wolper singing words from the Bible's Song of Songs over surging piano, and ...
read moreBob Gluck: Early Morning Star
by Karl Ackermann
Composer/pianist/electronic artist Bob Gluck's musical repertoire is particularly diverse. Among his many electro-acoustic projects are the borderless duo album Textures and Pulsations (Ictus Records, 2012) with Aruán Ortiz, Tropelets (Ictus Records, 2014) featuring improvisations based on Jewish biblical chants, and Infinite Spirit (FMR Records, 2016) where he pays tribute to Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Band. In the latter, Gluck brought in drummer Billy Hart and trumpeter Eddie Henderson from that relatively short-lived group. For Early Morning Star Gluck has brought together ...
read moreBob Gluck & Tani Tabbal: At This Time: Duets
by Karl Ackermann
Bob Gluck is a gifted composer of electronic and acoustic music, as well as an educator and writer. As a pianist/keyboardist he has offered innovative and intensely creative modern jazz, finding inspiration in the familiar and the obscure. He has collaborated with Michael Bisio, Jane Ira Bloom, Ken Filiano, and many other top-tier artists. With Billy Hart, Eddie Henderson and Christopher Dean Sullivan he gave us Infinite Spirit -Revisiting Music of the Mwandishi Band (Self Produced, 2016), a companion recording ...
read moreThe Miles Davis Lost Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles
by Karl Ackermann
The Miles Davis Lost Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles Bob Gluck 256 Pages ISBN: #022618076X University of Chicago Press 2016 In the history of jazz, no one has been written about more than Miles Davis. No one has been more debated, reviled and revered than the difficult genius who defines so much of the disparate history of modern jazz. So taking on yet another analysis of the composer and trumpeter could have been ...
read moreBob Gluck Trio: Returning
by Henry Smith
The piano trio can be a difficult format for free playing. It is too easy for the piano, so easily a dominating instrument, to overshadow the bassist and drummer, rendering them as backup to the more harmonically complex keyboard. This is fine, and an enormous amount of great music has been made in this format, but when it comes to more exploratory veins of jazz, it is difficult for a group to exhibit the simpatico required for simultaneous creativity and, ...
read moreBob Gluck Trio: Returning
by Karl Ackermann
The piano trio, in one form or another, has been a jazz staple since the 1930s, and consequently skews toward the familiar. Fortunately, there are those atypical artists who invite a deeper dive for the uninhibited. Nothing could be more challenging, interesting and listenable than the music Bob Gluck creates within that formation. Like his Something Quiet (FMR Records 2010), Gluck's Returning is a brilliant collection of uniquely modern jazz. Throughout, it is a passionate and riveting performance with rhythmic ...
read moreBob Gluck & Aruan Ortiz: "Textures And Pulsations: CD Release Concert
Source:
Robert Gluck
Pianists Bob Gluck and Aruán Ortiz will celebrate the release of “Textures and Pulsations," their new duet recording on Ictus Records at the Booklyn-based Shapeshifter Lab on Thursday, February 7. The 9pm show will feature improvisational works for two pianos, Moog Synthesizer, and digital processing. The duo's improvisations range across genres and musical forms, and feature poignantly etched live electronics, creating a colorful, virtuosic brew of subtly shifting textures, lyrical melodies, and great grooves. Dave Sumner (eMusic “Jazz Picks") writes: ...
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Bob Gluck Trio NYC Performance to Mark the Release of "Returning" (December 22)
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Robert Gluck
The Bob Gluck Trio will celebrate the release of its second CD, Returning (FMR) at a December 22 performance in New York City. The Thursday evening show will take place at the Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27th Street (between Fifth and Madison), at 8:00 pm. Returning has received rave reviews since its release in Spring 2011. John Book (Book's Music) calls iit “a fantastic listen... something exceptional." Bill Millkowski (Jazz Times) writes that the CD is “a perfect balance between ...
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Bob Gluck's Exceptional Piano Trio Outing: "Returning"
Source:
Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
Bob Gluck goes his own way. He is an excellent pianist, with harmonic and melodic ideas to spare. His recent Returning (FMR 292-0710) finds him in formidable company. Drummer Dean Sharp has the sensitivity and big ears to thrive in the intimate free-oriented trio setting. Michael Bisio has basso profundo status these days. He has become a major player (see my recent interview with him in All About Jazz), and for good reason. You have to have independent inventive prowess ...
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Bob Gluck Named Keyboard Magazine's "Unsigned Artist of the Month" for June 2009
Source:
All About Jazz
Pianist Bob Gluck's 2007 recording Electric Brew is featured in the June 2009 issue of Keyboard magazine. Naming Gluck “Unsigned Artist of the Month," writer Michael Gallant wrote: “Composer Bob Gluck combines lithe piano playing with processed shofar (ram’s horn) and a wide variety of computer-sourced sonics to create an engaging tapestry of living sound... Electric Brew is a welcome reminder of what magic can happen when rules are not so much broken, but taken out of the equation completely. ...
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Bob Gluck Trio Releases "Sideways" on FMR Records
Source:
All About Jazz
Sideways is the debut recording by the Bob Gluck Trio, displaying the group's uniquely creative yet disciplined edge to jazz performance. The trio's watchwords are collaboration, listening and response, and collective dynamism. Structured tunes flow in and out of free improvisation, taking the performers and listeners alike to unexpected imaginative places. Gluck's piano sounds subtly range between the purely acoustic and digitally transformed, joined by Sharp's broadly ranging sonic array of percussion and Bisio's distinctly physical approach to the string ...
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About ‘Something Quiet’ (FMR, 2011) with Joe Giardullo and Christopher Dean Sullivan: Karl Ackermann (All About Jazz): “As a composer and player, Gluck ranks with the likes of Andrew Hill and Cecil Taylor. The model for Something Quiet incorporates structure, power and the lack of restrictions... Something Quiet is completely original, artistically spontaneous, and intellectually challenging.” Doug Simpson (Audiofile Audition): “… a musical tapestry where anything can and often does happen… [Gluck’s] reharmonized version of Hancock’s “Dolphin Dance” … has a subtle shape that reinforces Hancock’s original objective while including chordal and melodic adaptations that deliver a distinct edge to Gluck’s translation. While Gluck is in the limelight most of the time, Sullivan supports with underpinned emotive interaction.” Bob Gish (Jazz Inside): “… the merger of feeling and melody, rhythm and sound… a partnership of resonance and vibration delivering to the fullest … enhanced by the sweetest of pulsing rhythms and cascading notes… road signs of timelessness.” Gregory Applegate Edwards (Grapplegate Music Review): “shows the subtle sensitivity of a pianist who has listened carefully to what's good in improvisational music today... Joe Giardullo... control, timbre, and phrasing of a master. Christopher Dean Sullivan brings in the bottom as a third line-creating voice... Put all that together and you get music that challenges your ears at the same time as it delivers musico-logical brilliance.”
Music
Sleeping Giant
From: Infinite Spirit: Revisiting...By Bob Gluck
By A Field
From: ReturningBy Bob Gluck
Lifeline
From: Something QuietBy Bob Gluck
Waterway
From: SidewaysBy Bob Gluck
Videos
Bob Gluck
Instrument: Piano
Born: January 27, 1955
Publicist: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services
