Hans Luchs

Hans Luchs is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader living in New York City. Hans has performed in a wide array of settings, from small jazz clubs to large outdoor festivals and concert halls. Hans originally got his start playing around his native Chicago, performing at The Auditorium Theatre, The Chicago Jazz Festival, The Green Mill, and The Jazz Showcase to name a few. Since moving to New York, Hans has played at Smalls, Ornithology, Cafe Ornithology, The Django, Minton's Playhouse, The Bitter End, and many other venues around New York City. Hans has also played internationally in Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Canada, and Turkey.

Hans has performed and toured with an array of artists in several musical traditions, including 8-time Grammy winner Pepe Aguilar, Motown legend Martha Reeves, and many jazz musicians in New York, Chicago, and beyond. As a recording artist, Hans has recorded in various formats as a sideman and leader, including projects produced by NPR and Apple Music.

Hans is also an active music educator. He currently teaches classes in guitar, ukulele, ensemble playing and music production at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Previous to living in New York, Hans earned a master's degree in jazz performance from DePaul University and a bachelor's in music performance from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Hans is also available for private lessons via Zoom and Skype, and can be reached at [email protected]

Hans Luchs: The Spell is Broken

Read "The Spell is Broken" reviewed by Artur Moral

by Artur Moral
January 24, 2025

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 ...

Album Review

Andrew Vogt: Awakening

Read "Awakening" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 5, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses

Read "Time Never Pauses" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
April 10, 2016

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 ...

Album Review

Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses

Read "Time Never Pauses" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 1, 2015

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 ...

Album Review

Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses

Read "Time Never Pauses" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 23, 2015

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.

"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 brings his trademark sound of polished elegance and understated, but definite passion to his captivating music."

-Hrayr Attarian, Chicago Jazz Magazine

Primary Instrument

Guitar

Location

New York City

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

I have taught in various capacities for 20 years. Currently, I am a faculty member at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. I teach students of all levels, and can teach most styles, with a special emphasis on jazz and improvisation.