UAlbany Music Professor Bob Gluck Releases Book about Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band

ALBANY, N.Y. (Sept. 4, 2012) -- University at Albany associate professor of music Bob Gluck will be signing his new book, You’ll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band, at 7 p.m. on Sept. 13 at the Book House at Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, N.Y. Published by University of Chicago Press, Gluck’s book has drawn praise from musicians including jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny and bassist Christian McBride.

UAlbany music professor Bob Gluck's new book has drawn praise from jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny and bassist Christian McBride.

“I’ve been captivated by Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band for many years,” said Gluck. “The story of how Hancock took this novel direction engages numerous important issues about the evolution of musical forms, racial identity, and creative uses of technology.”

Gluck, a pianist, jazz historian, and director of the Electronic Music Studio at UAlbany, tackles the subject of Herbie Hancock’s grand creative experiment.  Following his years with the celebrated Miles Davis Quintet, Hancock set out on the road, eventually forming what would become a revolutionary band. Taking the Swahili name Mwandishi, the group would go on to play some of the most innovative music of the 1970s.

“With his exhaustive research and detailed interviews, Bob Gluck brings the nature and workings of this amazing and influential ensemble to life,” noted Metheny, who has won 19 Grammy awards. “Bob Gluck does an inspired job in helping us to hear, and understand, every step of Mwandishi’s process,” noted McBride.   Gluck will discuss his book on WAMC with Joe Donahue on Sept. 11.

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