Bob Gluck - The Miles Davis Lost Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles

I was introduced to Miles Daviss Bitches Brew in 1970 by my familys rabbi, Chaim Stern. At the time, I was a student at Juilliards Preparatory Division. Having just begun to broaden my exposure to music beyond what I was experiencing at the conservatory, that recording was a jolt to my system. The inspiration to write this book, the companion piece to my previous work, Youll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band, dates to experiences I had four years after that first encounter with Davis, when I entered college.

The phenomenal creative cauldron that was the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam allowed me to make sense of Bitches Brew and introduced me to Herbie Hancocks Mwandishi recordings. I joined a circle of friends there, mostly musicians and artists who were clustered around a charismatic young professor named Donald J. Funes. Dons nonjudgmental embrace of every conceivable musical form and culture afforded me the space to explore new musical possibilities. We listened to John Coltranes A Love Supreme and the entire Wagner Ring cycle in his apartment. Dons Live/Electronic Ensemble introduced me to the kind of open improvisation that I had found so baffling about Bitches Brew, and I have been thinking about this music ever since. I have Don to thank for so much.

In addition to the profound broadening of my musical sensibilities that Don encouraged, another life-changing experience for me in Potsdam was my friendship with Jim Richard Wilson, then an art history student. Jim, two years my senior, was one of the few non-musicians in our circle. He brought a deep intellectual and artistic curiosity and acuity to the group, and in turn was able to cultivate his lifelong deep appreciation of music in its myriad forms. Jim was a much-appreciated supporter of our collective and often wild musical and multimedia endeavors.

After leaving Potsdam, Jim and I went our separate ways. Some years later, having recently moved to the Albany, New York, area to attend a graduate program in electronic arts, I discovered his name in the regional arts council newsletter, and we renewed our friendship. Jim was instrumental in encouraging my return to live musical performance after I had taken a break from it to serve as a rabbi. Our friendship deepened while we shared our love of jazz (particularly David Murray and Miles Davis), the plastic arts, politics, the outdoors, and intellectual pursuits, as well as our parallel lives within academia. (He was the founding director of an art gallery at a nearby college.) Jim was one of the best friends I have ever had, as well as a discerning reader of both my manuscripts.

Jim spent his final two and a half years heroically battling cancer until his death in July 2014. That period was one of much personal sadness: my father, Stanley Gluck, had passed away the previous October. I miss both men deeply, but their memory, along with the ever-present support of my spouse, Pamela Faith Lerman, has spurred the creative thinking that enabled my completion of this book.

I dedicate these pages to Jim Richard Wilson and to Don Funes, two people whose friendship and steady support helped make my creative endeavors possible. I dedicated my recording of music for saxophone, piano, and electronics, Tropelets (Ictus Records, 2014), to my fathers memory.

Faced as I was with competing possible narratives on which to focus The Miles Davis Lost Quintet, I owe many thanks to my editor, Elizabeth Branch Dyson, for helping guide my choice. Indeed, the Lost Quintet could be my major focus here while including two other elements from early drafts: Circle and the downtown loft scene in New York City. Both Circle and the Revolutionary Ensemble were personal discoveries made while I was at Potsdam. While I never saw Circle perform, I had the pleasure of hearing the Revolutionary Ensemble on two occasions, along with a solo performance by percussionist Jerome Cooper on a third. A conversation with Leroy Jenkins at that time (continued thirty years later) particularly sparked my interest. These were among many wonderful experiences I had while attending shows in venues like Studio Rivbea, Tin Palace, and the Public Theater. As I strove to identify a theme for this book, I came to recognize similarities between the music of Miles Daviss Lost Quintet, Circle, and the Revolutionary Ensemble. While writing, I increasingly appreciated their shared musical values and began to place all three on a single artistic continuum. Articulating the nature of that connective tissue, as well as the important differences, became an easy task.

Thank you, Elizabeth, and the entire staff at the University of Chicago Press, including Editorial Associate Nora Devlin, copy editor Sandra Hazel, and Promotions Manager Ryo Yamaguchi; Ive had the pleasure of working with Elizabeth and Ryo on my earlier book as well. I am also grateful to the many discerning and encouraging readers of this manuscript, among them Pheeroan akLaff, Dawoud Bey, Andre Cholmondeley, Guy de Bievre, Douglas Ewart, Patrick Gleeson, Michael Heffley, David Katz, James Keepnews, Pamela Faith Lerman, Ras Moshe, Nashira Priester, and Jim Richard Wilson. They have made this a far better book than it would have been otherwise. For helpful contributions to my thinking and research, I extend my appreciation to Dawoud Bey, Stanley Cowell, Brent Edwards, Herbie Hancock, Jabali Billy Hart, Michael Heller, Dave Holland, George Lewis, Neil Rolnick, and Michael Veal. Thanks also to Shira Gluck for her work on interview transcriptions and editorial matters.

Many thanks to the many musicians who gave of their time to converse with me in formal interviews about that wonderful creative period of more than four decades ago: Barry Altschul, Karl Berger, Jerome Cooper, Chick Corea, Alvin Curran, Andrew Cyrille, Dave Liebman, John Mars, Michael Moss, Alphonse Mouzon, Wallace Roney, Warren Smith, and Richard Teitelbaum.