Bob Rusch is an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 critic and record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

.

Rusch studied clarinet and drums in his youth. During the 1970s, Rusch played drums in workshops with Jaki Byard

Jaki Byard

Jaki Byard was an American jazz pianist and composer who also played trumpet and saxophone, among several other instruments. He was noteworthy for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz...

 and Cedar Walton

Cedar Walton

Cedar Anthony Walton, Junior is an American hard bop jazz pianist.-Biography:Walton grew up in Dallas, Texas. His mother was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Walton's initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas...

. He wrote for the magazines Down Beat

Down Beat

Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

, Jazz Journal and Jazz Forum in the 1970s before founding Cadence Magazine in 1975. He founded two noted labels, Cadence Jazz

Cadence Jazz Records

Cadence Jazz is an American record label specializing in noncommercial jazz music. It is associated with Cadence Magazine.Cadence Jazz was founded by Bob Rusch in Redwood, New York in 1980...

 (in 1980) and CIMP

Creative Improvised Music Projects

Creative Improvised Music Projects, usually abbreviated CIMP or C.I.M.P., is an American jazz record label. It is associated with Cadence Magazine and Cadence Jazz Records. Acoustically, the label is noted for its minimal use of electronic processing and its spare microphoning technique...

 (in 1995), and produced or oversaw the release of hundreds of jazz releases; among those he has produced are Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon was an American musician, composer, visual artist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in the free jazz movement. He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverberation as part of his trumpet playing.-Biography:Dixon hailed from...

, Chet Baker

Chet Baker

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...

, Glenn Spearman

Glenn Spearman

Glenn Spearman was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He was specifically associated with free jazz and experimental music....

, Ernie Krivda

Ernie Krivda

Ernie Krivda is a jazz saxophone player.Ernie Krivda began his professional career in 1963 with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. During the 1960s he played in bands of two Cleveland legends, organist Eddie Baccus and guitarist Bill DeArango...

, Ivo Perelman

Ivo Perelman

Ivo Perelman is a Brazilian free jazz saxophonist born in Sao Paulo.Perelman learned to play guitar, cello, clarinet, trombone, and piano while young, and concentrated on tenor sax from age 19. He attended the Berklee College of Music for one semester and then dropped out, moving to Los Angeles in...

, Noah Howard

Noah Howard

Noah Howard was an American free jazz alto saxophonist.-Biography:An American born in New Orleans, Howard played music from childhood in his church. He first learned trumpet and later switching to alto, tenor and soprano saxophone. He was an innovator influenced by John Coltrane and Albert Ayler...

, Dominic Duval

Dominic Duval

Dominic Duval is an American free jazz bassist.Since the 1990s, Duval has been active principally on the New York City jazz scene. He did not begin recording regularly until the 1990s, but since then has appeared on a very large number of albums, particularly on the labels CIMP, Cadence Jazz, and...

, Steuart Liebig, Cecil Taylor

Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...

, Fred Hess

Fred Hess

Fred Hess is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Hess was raised in New Jersey and studied at Trenton State College. His early experiences include studies with saxophonist Phil Woods, a stint with bandleader Fred Waring, and composing music for the world premiere of a Sam Shepard play...

, Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...

, Bill Barron

Bill Barron (musician)

Bill Barron was an American jazz tenor and soprano tenor saxophonist.-Biography:...

, Paul Smoker

Paul Smoker

Paul Alva Smoker is an American jazz trumpeter.Smoker grew up in Davenport, Iowa, and moved to Chicago to play professionally. He worked there in the 1960s, playing with Bobby Christian among others...

, and Steve Swell

Steve Swell

Steve Swell is an American free jazz trombonist and composer.Swell studied at Jersey City State College before moving to New York City in 1975 where he began his musical life, playing in top 40 bands, salsa bands, big bands and performed on Broadway in Bob Fosse's "Dancin""...

. He has run North Country Record Distribution, an independent jazz label distributor, since 1983. Rusch has donated his large, indexed collection of jazz periodicals to the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.