Bob Gluck: Something Quiet (2011)

GLENN ASTARITA,

Glenn Astarita

Senior Contributor since 1997

Longtime contributor to AAJ and Downbeat, Jazz Review, EjazzNews, Radio DirectX.

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Published: February 5, 2011

Track review of "Dolphin Dance"

Julliard-trained pianist Bob Gluck's heart lies within the adventurous free jazz uprising of the 1960s and electronic music. This harmonically appealing acoustic date subliminally intimates his penchant for both genres, an album framed in a cunning fusion of ambient, jazz improvisation and concrete song forms.

Gluck and bassist Christopher Dean Sullivan engage for a subtle, introspective and largely temperate spin on Herbie Hancock's classic, "Dolphin Dance." The pianist launches the piece with an animated sequence of chord voicings, while interrogating the primary melody along the way. The duo persuasively combines a touch of gravitas with a jazzy verve to complement delicate pastiches of sound and an open-air bridge, where Sullivan counters Gluck's expansive creations.

Gluck offsets the tried and true by exposing a myriad of possibilities and emotive aspects amid thought-provoking encounters with his band mates. It's an album that doesn't overexcite, but is more a perceptive alignment of mesmeric propositions.

Personnel: Bob Gluck, piano; Christopher Dean Sullivan, bass.

Record Label: FMR Records
Style: Modern Jazz