Dave Glasser

Native New Yorker Dave Glasser has earned recognition among straight-ahead jazz audiences through years spent accompanying veteran trumpeter and flügelhornist Clark Terry as a sideman. The alto saxophonist—distinct from both engineer David Glasser and classical clarinetist David Glazer—embraces bebop without reservation. His approach draws heavily from Charlie “Bird” Parker and followers such as Sonny Stitt and Gigi Gryce, reflecting a clear affection for the rapid, exhilarating chord progressions that defined the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time, his tonal qualities reflect earlier alto stylists from the pre-bop period, notably Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges, the longtime Duke Ellington associate who counted among Parker’s own influences. These earlier figures shape only Glasser’s intonation, however; he remains no swing revivalist when it comes to phrasing or harmonic navigation.

Although his core conception stems from the Parker/Stitt/Gryce/Phil Woods/Frank Morgan lineage of bop alto, Glasser also registers the more restrained voices of the cool era. Critics have frequently detected echoes of Lee Konitz and Paul Desmond—two leading cool-jazz altoists—particularly on ballads and medium-tempo pieces. Additional timbral suggestions arise from non-alto sources, including the cool-toned tenor master Stan Getz, whose primary inspiration was Lester “Pres” Young, and the gifted yet under-recognized Dave Schildkraut. Taken together, this roster of touchstones—Parker, Stitt, Schildkraut, Gryce, Carter, Hodges, Konitz, Desmond, and Getz among them—yields an improviser who forgoes innovation yet maintains a distinct identity.

As a teenager in the Big Apple, Glasser studied at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts before earning a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His recorded debut arrived in 1987 on pianist Bill Dobbins’ B.D. album for the Equinox label. Between 1989 and 1991 he performed with the Count Basie ghost orchestra under longtime Basie tenor saxophonist Frank Foster’s direction, and in the early to mid-1990s he held the lead alto chair in tenor honker Illinois Jacquet’s ensemble. Glasser entered Clark Terry’s quintet in 1995 and has also maintained an extensive association with pianist Barry Harris. His first leader date, Uh! Oh!, appeared on the German Nagel-Heyer imprint in 2000. Subsequent releases include the 2002 Artemis album Dreams Askew, Dreams Anew, which featured Harris, and 2003’s Begin Again on Chiaroscuro. Standards: Green and Blue and Above the Clouds both surfaced in 2006.