Home » Jazz Musicians » Rob Clutton

Rob Clutton

Rob Clutton is a Toronto-based composer/performer who works in the intersections of composition and improvisation, in long-term projects in which the relationship of the musicians has a central but incalculable role. Rob’s impetus to play the bass comes from listening, allowing inspiration to reside in a sonic imaginary, in which the sound of the bass is the same as the tree singing is the same as the human listening. Rob has two solo bass albums: Dubious Pleasures and Suchness Monster, on the Rat-Drifting label. Oct 12, 2018 is the release date of Rob’s 6th CD of compositions, Leeways, featuring the Cluttertones and Lee Pui Ming. In 2015 the Cluttertones released Ordinary Joy, a critically acclaimed recording of original compositions, on the Healing Power label. Earlier independent releases include Holstein Dream Pageant and Tender Buttons. As a creative bassist, Rob has dedicated himself to playing original music, and has toured in the USA and Europe with Lina Allemano’s Titanium Riot, and the Juno-winning Neufeld Occhipinti Jazz Orchestra (NOJO). Other touring has included Japan, the UK, and the Cervantino Festival in Mexico with the Steve Koven Trio, as well as extensive Canadian performances with various groups including John Millard and Happy Day, Drumheller, the Nick Fraser Quartet and Fides Krucker’s In This Body. As an active participant in Toronto’s improvised and creative music community, Rob collaborates with musicians, dancers, theatre and performance artists. This year Rob is grateful to be exploring the intersections of improvisation and composition in Berlin, New York, and Toronto, under the auspices of an Ontario Arts Council “Chalmers Fellowship.”

Tags

5
Album Review

Lina Allemano: Canons

Read "Canons" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Capping twenty years of running Lumo Records--a record label dedicated to her multifarious projects--with Canons, trumpeter Lina Allemano has assembled several innovative ensembles to give voice to her distinctive chamber-jazz aesthetic. While it might not be as obviously adventurous as some of her previous releases, it retains Allemano's signature emphasis on finding the ideal pivot point between composition and improvisation. And it is often a quite beautiful listening experience as well. Allemano has always been a crafty improviser, ...

1
Album Review

Tania Gill Quartet: Disappearing Curiosities

Read "Disappearing Curiosities" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Pianist Tania Gill has been making inspired music in the ever-thriving Toronto jazz scene since the early 2000s, although her output has become especially visible since her debut release Bolger Station (Barnyard Records, 2010). An artist equally attentive to melody and songcraft, Gill refuses to be pigeonholed, contributing to a range of projects which defy easy labeling; she appeared on vocalist Rebecca Hennessey's All the Little Things You Do (self-released, 2020), an album both jazz-inflected and pop-friendly, and on saxophonist ...

4
Album Review

Rob Clutton Trio: Counsel of Primaries

Read "Counsel of Primaries" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Bassist Rob Clutton has been a regular presence in the Toronto jazz scene for some time, having begun his recording career in the mid 1990s, subsequently working within a cluster of fellow Canadian improvisers, including efforts with Lina Allemano, Nick Storring, Nick Fraser, and Karen Ng. The latter two are integral components of Counsel of Primaries, a compelling venture into well-crafted music that straddles the line between an abstract chamber aesthetic and jazz-based improvisation. Clutton is credited with ...

29
Album Review

Mark Segger: Lift Off

Read "Lift Off" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


This Canadian band throws almost everything imaginable at the studio walls in synchronous fashion. And while the album may be classified as an EP, due to its 29-minute length, quality is the underlying factor throughout. Based out of Edmonton, Segger started this band via its first album, The Beginning (18th Note Records, 2011). Nine-years later, the sextet extends its resume with this high-impact and compelling release, brimming with gobs of counterpoint, sizzling free-form detours and complex modal narratives.

5
Album Review

Mark Segger Sextet: Lift Off

Read "Lift Off" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Fracas and focus are not mutually exclusive concepts. In purely linguistic terms, invoking the label “avant-garde" when addressing sound often calls to mind a melee-as-music scenario. The audible truth, however, is something else entirely. An artist's work can lean far to the left without falling off the comprehensibility scale, and drummer Mark Segger makes that argument with brevity and brio. With twelve years of existence binding concepts and compadres, Segger's sextet operates like a well-oiled, though highly irregular ...

2
Album Review

Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby: Offering

Read "Offering" reviewed by John Eyles


Toronto-based double-bassist Rob Clutton and New York saxophonist Tony Malaby have history that dates back to 1999; after meeting at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, where both were resident artists, they eventually ended up as half of Toronto drummer Nick Fraser's quartet which released its first album, Starer (Self Produced), in 2016. Clutton has several albums to his name, including Dubious Pleasures (Rat-Drifting, 2005) and Suchness Monster (Rat-Drifting, 2009) both of which are solo bass recordings. For Offering, rather ...

Read more articles

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Canons

Lumo Records
2023

buy

Disappearing...

Self Produced
2022

buy

Lift Off

Self Produced
2020

buy

Counsel of Primaries

SnailBongBong Records
2020

buy

Offering

Snailbongbong Records
2019

buy

Leeways

Snailbongbong
2018

buy

Lift Off

From: Lift Off
By Rob Clutton

Gull

From: Leeways
By Rob Clutton

Get more of a good thing!

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