Home » Jazz Musicians » David Gilmore

David Gilmore

Over the past decade guitarist and composer David Gilmore has recorded and performed with some of the most highly influential and innovative artists in modern music today including Wayne Shorter, Dave Douglas, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Steve Coleman, Don Byron, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine, Randy Brecker and David Sanborn. He has appeared on over 50 recordings and been a major presence on the international touring scene. In the Spring of 2001 he released his first recording as a leader entitled Ritualism, which has already received major international critical appraise and was nominated for Debut CD of the Year in 2001 by the Jazz Journalists Association. Mr. Gilmore was also recently voted into the Rising Stars category in DownBeat Magazine's Critic's Poll.

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gilmore sought out music at a young age experimenting with piano, drums and percussion before discovering the guitar at the age of 15. After a few years of private study with Boston local guitar gurus John Baboian and Randy Roos, Gilmore moved to New York to attend New York University, where he studied under the tutelage of sax titan Joe Lovano and pianist Jim McNeely. Shortly after his graduation in 1987, Gilmore began touring and recording in earnest with many of the members of the fledging M-Base Collective, and soon after began to find himself in many other diverse musical situations, recording and/ or touring with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Trilok Gurtu, Graham Haynes, Robin Eubanks, and Lonnie Plaxico. In the early 1990’s he became an active member of the popular jazz/fusion group Lost Tribe, co-producing their first two recordings for the Windham Hill Label.

Over the years he has also lent his skills to a variety of pop/ commercial acts including Japan’s Monday Michiru, Me’shell N’Degeocello, Melissa Etheridge, Joan Osbourne, Mavis Staples, Issac Hayes, Boz Scaggs, Tommy Lang of Austria, Rise Robots Rise, and toured extensively with multi-platinum selling artist Joss Stone. In 1995 Gilmore got the call to join sax legend Wayne Shorter’s group, and appears on Mr. Shorter’s Grammy Award winning album, High Life on Verve. He can be found most recently on recordings by Christian McBride, Carolyn Leonhart, Don Byron, Ron Blake and Uri Caine.

As a composer, improviser and guitarist, Gilmore is committed to pushing the boundaries of improvisational music, at the same time without alienating the uninitiated listener. His music reflects the diverse musical influences and experiences he has assimilated throughout his career. The exploration of rhythm is a major component of his music, utilizing many non-Western approaches and integrating them into a modern framework. Gilmore was a recipient of the Chamber Music America New Works Composer Grant, enabling him to compose a commisioned work entitled "African Continuum" which was performed in public in the Spring and Fall of 2003. His playing has been compared to guitarists with styles as diverse as George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix and Leo Nocentelli.

Read more

Tags

Album Review

Jean-Paul Bourelly: Black Lives - From Generation to Generation

Read "Black Lives - From Generation to Generation" reviewed by Vic Albani


Doppio CD o doppio vinile prodotto in HI-Res e con packaging di lusso dalla Jammin'colorS, agenzia per artisti jazz, world, funk, alternativi, hip-hop, electro e sperimentali nonché etichetta indipendente. Il lavoro che ha pubblicato in tanta pompa magna è un ampio collage di musica nera realizzato da 25 musicisti africani, caraibici e afroamericani guidati dalla visione creativa di Stefany Calembert (compagna del bassista jazz Reggie Washington) e produttrice estemporanea dell'etichetta belga. A tutti è stato chiesto di comporre ...

11
Album Review

Various Artists: Black Lives - From Generation to Generation

Read "Black Lives - From Generation to Generation" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Indeed, African Americans are the architects of several musical formations, hearkening back to Scott Joplin's development of 'ragged' rhythms i.e., Ragtime, along with blues, funk, jazz, and other genres, often evolving into various tangents and offshoots. And on this comprehensively entertaining set produced by Belgian Stefany Calembert with assistance from her husband and acclaimed bassist Reggie Washington, they righteously bestow Black Music as a “source of moral truth and potent weapon against racism." Numerous stars such as saxophonist ...

7
Album Review

Donald Edwards Quintet: The Color Of US Suite

Read "The Color Of US Suite" reviewed by Chris May


This is an album one really wants to love but ends up applauding more for its intention than its realisation. Drummer Donald Edwards has composed a suite which addresses the race hate which besmirches America and which, observed from the other side of the pond, seems to have become more bitter and entrenched with the passing years. On the opening “Little Hopes," a young girl identified as Sophia Edwards, possibly Edwards' daughter, relates with affecting simplicity her ...

13
Album Review

David Gilmore: Energies of Change

Read "Energies of Change" reviewed by Dave Wayne


David Gilmore's career started off with a bang. He worked with Steve Coleman through the 1990s, appearing on at least nine recordings either led, or instigated, by the renowned saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and recent MacArthur Award recipient. Since emerging from Coleman's M-BASE fold, Gilmore has worked with a stunning variety of artists both inside and outside the jazz world. Zap Mama, Wayne Shorter, Muhal Richard Abrams, Meshell Ndegeocello, Monday Michiru, and Don Byron are just a few of the diverse ...

2
Album Review

David Gilmore: Numerology: Live At Jazz Standard

Read "Numerology: Live At Jazz Standard" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Numbers and music are inextricably linked together. Numbers exist within every musical impulse and control the very nature of music through their connective ratios and relationships. This concept is explored to the fullest, without coming off as inaccessible “math music," on guitarist David Gilmore's Numerology: Live At Jazz Standard. Gilmore--not to be confused with Pink Floyd's guitar-wielding David Gilmour--has made a name for himself as a Berklee-based educator and go-to sideman, appearing on recordings with saxophonist Wayne ...

960
Interview

David Gilmore: Getting To The Point

Read "David Gilmore: Getting To The Point" reviewed by Phil DiPietro


Sometimes, a series of small disparate observations dovetail to produce incredulity, stupefaction and even anger. Here we go. Have you noticed that Nat Hentoff has set off a bit not his first bit) of controversy with his December 2001 “Final Chorus , which can be found on the last page of every issue of Jazz Times. Nat took occasion to knock a couple of the more well-known current crop of jazz divas. Suspending, for the purpose of avoiding litigation, the ...

717
Extended Analysis

David Gilmore: Unified Presence

Read "David Gilmore: Unified Presence" reviewed by Phil DiPietro


David Gilmore Unified Presence RKM Records 2006

Let's break it down. You won't find this statement in David Gilmore's bio or on his website, but here it is: Gilmore is one of the baddest guitarists on the planet. Here's why--rhythmic acuity. If I were to write a book on jazz, one of its chapters would be titled “Instrumentalists Who Play Linear Rhythms", or maybe “Harmony As A Drum." I'm talking about players like Vijay ...

Read more articles
1

Recording

Guitarist/Composer David Gilmore Releases "Numerology" "Live at the Ja77 Standard" Featuring David Gilmore with Claudia Acua A, Miguel Zenon, Luis Perdomo, Christian McBride, Jeff "Tain" Watts and Mino Cinelu

Guitarist/Composer David Gilmore Releases "Numerology" "Live at the Ja77 Standard" Featuring David Gilmore with Claudia Acua A, Miguel Zenon, Luis Perdomo, Christian McBride, Jeff "Tain" Watts and Mino Cinelu

Source: Two for the Show Media

Numerology Suite is musical exploration into the mystical, divine, and spiritual meaning of numbers, which reflect the creation of the Universe and the underlying structure upon which the material world is built. Music is the language of the Universe, and the elements of music - harmony, melody and rhythm, are all expressions of number. Pythagoras, the father of mathematics, taught that the numbers one through nine represent the universal principles and progressive cycles in life. Here David Gilmore invites the ...

125

Interview

David Gilmore Interview

David Gilmore Interview

Source: All About Jazz


Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Black Lives - From...

Jammin' Colors
2022

buy

Guitar Talk

AGS Recordings
2021

buy

Resonant Bodies

Meta Records
2021

buy

Energies of Change

Evolutionary Music
2016

buy

Numerology: Live At...

Evolutionary Music
2012

buy

Parallax

From: Resonant Bodies
By David Gilmore

Videos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.