Today we’re listening to and remembering Patrick Gleeson, an American synthesist and composer from Seattle. Born in 1934, he started playing piano at age six and gravitated toward jazz, eventually discovering the Buchla Box synthesizer in the ‘60s in a Bay Area music studio.1 He was inspired by Wendy Carlos’s 1968 record, Switched-on Bach, and her project of realizing classical and jazz standards through novel electronics. His work caught the attention of Herbie Hancock, who featured his Moog III and Arp 2600 performance on Crossings and Sextant in the early ‘70s. In 1976 Gleeson released An Electronic Portrait of Holst’s The Planets, a rendition of Gustav Holst’s celestial opus on an E-mu Polyphonic Synthesizer. First, though, we’re playing his 2007 record Slide, which is a sort of kosmische album of mostly original pieces, the first one being “Variations On A Philip Glass Theme.” Shortly after Gleeson passed away in July, published a remarkable personal remembrance, writing, “Pat loved creating multi-layered rhythms of all kinds, and emerging and receding kaleidoscopic sound tapestries. He had a broad and substantive melodic and harmonic sound palette, although he modestly declined to claim expertise.”

Slide - Patrick Gleeson (48m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal

An Electronic Portrait of Holst’s The Planets - Patrick Gleeson (49m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal

Have a magical Thursday.

1

New York Times