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Hans Luchs
Hans Luchs is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader based in New York City. He has performed in settings from small jazz clubs to large outdoor festivals and concert halls, and has toured with eight-time Grammy winner Pepe Aguilar. He has also performed with Motown legend Martha Reeves, "Daughter of the Blues" Shirley King, and many celebrated jazz artists from New York and around the world.
Luchs got his start in Chicago, where his first steady gig was Sundays at the Velvet Lounge with drummer Isaiah Spencer's band. He went on to play the Auditorium Theatre, The Green Mill, Buddy Guy's Legends, and The Jazz Showcase, and weeks before moving to New York in 2017, he played the Chicago Jazz Festival with Gustavo Cortiñas.
In New York he has played Citi Field, the BRIC festival at the Lena Horne Bandshell, Smalls, Mezzrow, Minton's Playhouse, Ornithology, and The Django. Internationally, he has performed at Ronnie Scott's in London, 38Riv in Paris, the Madrid International Jazz Festival, Jamboree in Barcelona, The Rex in Toronto, and venues in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Istanbul, and Mexico City.
Luchs has recorded as a leader and a sideman, including projects produced by NPR and Apple Music. He has released three albums as a leader: Time Never Pauses (OA2 Records, 2015), Until Next Time (2018), and The Spell Is Broken (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2025), which reached #80 on the JazzWeek charts. His fourth album, Homage, is out January 15, 2027, on Fresh Sound New Talent. DownBeat's Scott Yanow called his compositions "notable for their original and often-stimulating chord changes."
Also an active educator, Luchs has taught for 20 years, including six on the faculty of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and now teaches privately in New York City and online. He holds a master's in jazz performance from DePaul University and a bachelor's in music performance from the University of Illinois Chicago.
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Hans Luchs: The Spell is Broken
by Artur Moral
The third record by NYC-based guitarist Hans Luchs arrives six years after his praiseworthy--but largely overlooked--sophomore release, Until Next Time (Self Produced, 2018). As with that album, the Chicagoan embraces the well-known motto of “less is more," distilling his guitar expertise and writing talent into less than forty minutes across eight new original compositions. Luchs stands as the antithesis of what we might call a jazz guitar hero and rejects any instrumental prominence as a leader. His approach ...
Continue Reading...Andrew Vogt: Awakening
by Glenn Astarita
Chicago-based Andrew Vogt's Awakening is a profound exploration of the bass guitar's potential as a melodic and rhythmic force. The album highlights Vogt's exceptional musicianship and compositional skill as he delves into a rich sonic palette. It is a jazz album that feels like a musical journey through a dreamscape, where each track is a different chapter in an unfolding story. The album opens with the melodic title track, “Awakening," which sets a serene yet powerful tone with ...
Continue Reading...Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses
by Budd Kopman
While it does not scream downtown, avant-garde, uber originality, guitarist Hans Luchs debut recording, Time Never Pauses, is far from a vanilla, “jazz as style" offering, and, in fact has much going for it. For one thing, his band, consisting of drummer George Fludas, bassist Clark Sommers, pianist Stu Mindeman and Shaun Johnson on trumpet is extremely tight, precise and, in many spots, smoking. Luchs does not dominate the session, and is part of the rhythm section for ...
Continue Reading...Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses
by C. Michael Bailey
Chicago-based guitarist Hans Luchs draws more from the recent than far past. More John Abercrombie and John Scofield than Wes Montgomery or Grant Green. His debut recording Time Never Pauses is a collection of eight original compositions and two transformed standards reveals the continued refining of modern jazz composition well past the head-solo section-head style of hard bop and the liquid freedom of post bop into pure composition. “Der Lumenmeister," the album opener is labyrinthian in both ...
Continue Reading...Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses
by Jack Bowers
Not much can be said about Hans Luchs aside from the fact that he lives in Chicago, looks to be fairly young and plays an intense, assertive and agile guitar on Time Never Pauses, which, incidentally, is Luchs' recorded debut as leader of his own group. Luchs is also a writer who composed eight of the album's ten selections (the others are Duke Ellington's “Come Sunday" and Cole Porter's “Get Out of Town") and arranged all of them.
Continue Reading..."Luchs' compositions are... notable for their original and often-stimulating chord changes [and] their structures inspire inventive solos"
-Scott Yanow, Downbeat
"Hans Luchs... plays an intnse, assertive, and agile guitar"
-Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
"Luchs.. [comes] to the fore with a gorgeous solo"
-Bob Weinberg, Jazziz
"Luchs brings his trademark sound of polished elegance and understated, but definite passion to his captivating music."
-Hrayr Attarian, Chicago Jazz Magazine
John Scofield
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Peter Bernstein
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Grant Green
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Jim Hall
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Pat Metheny
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Wes Montgomery
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Bobby Broom
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Azizam
From: The Spell is BrokenBy Hans Luchs
