Patrick Gleeson
Encyclopedia
Patrick Gleeson is a musician, synthesizer
pioneer, composer and producer, from California
, USA
.
Gleeson began experimenting with electronic music in the mid-'60s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center
using a Buchla
synth and other devices.
In 1968, "upon hearing Walter Carlos' Switched-On Bach
", he bought a Moog synthesizer
and opened recording studio Different Fur
.
He worked with Herbie Hancock
in the early 1970s, touring with Hancock -- thus pioneering the use of synthesizers outside the studio -- and appearing on the albums Crossings and Sextant
. Hancock has credited Gleeson with introducing him to synthesizers and teaching him technique. Sextant and Headhunters were both recorded in part at Different Fur studios. Gleeson has worked with many other Jazz musicians, including Lenny White
, Freddie Hubbard
, Charles Earland
and Joe Henderson
.
Gleeson recorded a number of solo albums, starting with Beyond the Sun - An Electronic Portrait of Holst's "The Planets" in 1976, to which Walter Carlos contributed the sleeve notes. The album was nominated for a "best engineered recording-classical" Grammy in 1976. Beyond the Sun was followed in 1977 by a more commercial album, Patrick Gleeson's Star Wars.
He worked as an engineer on the 1978 Devo
album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
, part of which was recorded at Different Fur.
He sold his interest in Different Fur in 1985.
Gleeson has been involved in the scoring of a number of film soundtracks, including The Plague Dogs
, Apocalypse Now
and The Bedroom Window. He has scored nine television series, including Knot's Landing.
With Julian Priester
With Eddie Henderson
With Charles Earland
With Lenny White
With Joe Henderson
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
pioneer, composer and producer, from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Gleeson began experimenting with electronic music in the mid-'60s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center
San Francisco Tape Music Center
The San Francisco Tape Music Center was founded in 1962 by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender as a "nonprofit cultural and educational corporation, the aim of which was to present concerts and offer a place to learn about work within the tape music medium"...
using a Buchla
Buchla
Buchla & Associates, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, notably synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The 200e Electric Music Box and Lightning III are currently in production.-Buchla Music Box :...
synth and other devices.
In 1968, "upon hearing Walter Carlos' Switched-On Bach
Switched-On Bach
-Details:The album consists of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed on a Moog synthesizer, a modular synthesizer system, one of which can be seen at the back of the room on the album cover. "Switched-On Bach," or "S-OB" as Carlos referred to it, was recorded on a custom-built 8 track recorder...
", he bought a Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
and opened recording studio Different Fur
Different Fur
Different Fur is a recording studio located in the Mission District of San Francisco, California, and is located at 3470 19th Street...
.
He worked with Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
in the early 1970s, touring with Hancock -- thus pioneering the use of synthesizers outside the studio -- and appearing on the albums Crossings and Sextant
Sextant (album)
Sextant is the eleventh album by Herbie Hancock, and the last album with his Mwandishi Band.-About the Album:Released in 1973 but recorded in 1972, Sextant was Herbie Hancock's first album on Columbia Records. It was a complex, harmonically and rhythmically challenging musical statement...
. Hancock has credited Gleeson with introducing him to synthesizers and teaching him technique. Sextant and Headhunters were both recorded in part at Different Fur studios. Gleeson has worked with many other Jazz musicians, including Lenny White
Lenny White
Leonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
, Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, Charles Earland
Charles Earland
Charles Earland was an American jazz composer, organist, and saxophonist in the soul jazz idiom.-Biography:...
and Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...
.
Gleeson recorded a number of solo albums, starting with Beyond the Sun - An Electronic Portrait of Holst's "The Planets" in 1976, to which Walter Carlos contributed the sleeve notes. The album was nominated for a "best engineered recording-classical" Grammy in 1976. Beyond the Sun was followed in 1977 by a more commercial album, Patrick Gleeson's Star Wars.
He worked as an engineer on the 1978 Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
Question: Are We Not Men? Answer: We Are Devo!
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! is the debut album by the American new wave music band Devo. Produced by Brian Eno, it was recorded primarily in Cologne, Germany and released in the U.S. by Warner Bros. Records company in 1978....
, part of which was recorded at Different Fur.
He sold his interest in Different Fur in 1985.
Gleeson has been involved in the scoring of a number of film soundtracks, including The Plague Dogs
The Plague Dogs (film)
The Plague Dogs is a 1982 animated film based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Richard Adams. The film was written-for-screen, directed and produced by Martin Rosen, who also directed Watership Down, the film version of another novel by Adams, produced by Nepenthe Productions and released by...
, Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
and The Bedroom Window. He has scored nine television series, including Knot's Landing.
As leader
- 1976 - Beyond the Sun - An Electronic Portrait of Holst's "The Planets".
- 1977 - Patrick Gleeson's Star Wars
- 1980 - Rainbow Delta, reissued on label Anthology Recordings in 2007
- 1982 - Patrick Gleeson's Computer Realization of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
- 1998 - Driving While Black with Bennie Maupin
- 2007 - Slide, a chamber music album of jazz influenced minimalism
- 2008 - Jazz Criminal with Jim Lang and featuring Bennie Maupin and Wallace Roney
As sideman
With Herbie HancockHerbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
- Crossings (1971)
- SextantSextant (album)Sextant is the eleventh album by Herbie Hancock, and the last album with his Mwandishi Band.-About the Album:Released in 1973 but recorded in 1972, Sextant was Herbie Hancock's first album on Columbia Records. It was a complex, harmonically and rhythmically challenging musical statement...
(1972)
With Julian Priester
Julian Priester
Julian Priester is an American jazz trombonist and composer.He has played with many artists including Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock.-Biography:...
- Love, LoveLove, LoveLove, Love is an album by American jazz trombonist and composer Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto recorded in 1973 and released on the ECM label.-Reception:...
(ECM, 1973)
With Eddie Henderson
Eddie Henderson (musician)
Eddie Henderson is an American jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player. Henderson's influences include Booker Little, Clifford Brown, Woody Shaw and Miles Davis.-Family influence and early music history:...
- Realization (Capricorn RecordsCapricorn RecordsCapricorn Records was an independent record label which was launched by Phil Walden, Alan Walden, and Frank Fenter in 1969 in Macon, Georgia.-First Incarnation:...
, 1973) - Inside Out (Capricorn RecordsCapricorn RecordsCapricorn Records was an independent record label which was launched by Phil Walden, Alan Walden, and Frank Fenter in 1969 in Macon, Georgia.-First Incarnation:...
, 1974)
With Charles Earland
Charles Earland
Charles Earland was an American jazz composer, organist, and saxophonist in the soul jazz idiom.-Biography:...
- Leaving This Planet (Prestige RecordsPrestige RecordsPrestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
, 1974) - The Dynamite Brothers (Prestige RecordsPrestige RecordsPrestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
, 1974)
With Lenny White
Lenny White
Leonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
- Venusian Summer (Nemperor RecordsNemperor RecordsNemperor Records is an American jazz and pop record label, originally distributed by Atlantic Records from 1974 to 1977, and then CBS Records from 1978 onward, and is currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment....
, 1975) - Big City (Nemperor RecordsNemperor RecordsNemperor Records is an American jazz and pop record label, originally distributed by Atlantic Records from 1974 to 1977, and then CBS Records from 1978 onward, and is currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment....
, 1977) - Presents The Adventures Of The Astral Pirates (Elektra RecordsElektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
, 1978)
With Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...
- Black Narcissus (Milestone RecordsMilestone RecordsMilestone Records is a United States based jazz record label, founded in 1966 by Orrin Keepnews and Dick Katz in New York City. The company was incorporated into Fantasy Records in 1972, since then it has been used for reissues as well as for new recordings....
, 1976)
External links
- Patrick Gleeson MySpace page
- http://www.discogs.com/artist/Patrick+GleesonPatrick Gleeson at discogs.comDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
] - [ Patrick Gleeson at Allmusic.com]
- Danny Sofer and Doug Lynner, Interview with Patrick Gleeson, Synapse Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 5, January/February 1977 (Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5)