More than just a jazz guitar player, Chuck Loeb is
the consummate musician. In a career that spans four
decades, he has proven himself to be a versatile composer,
arranger and producer in a wide range of musical styles
and contexts. In addition to crafting a fine discography
of his own and producing albums for a number of other
high-profile artists, his resume also includes music
for commercial jingles and a variety of television programs
and motion pictures. Whatever your personal tastes in
music, media, entertainment or popular culture, chances
are good that you’ve had at least a passing acquaintance
with the work of Chuck Loeb.
Loeb grew up in Nyack, NY, a suburb of New York City
and the perfect environment for a young person with
an interest in music. The area was home to many artists
who worked in the city, as well as a center for many
arts, music and performance education programs. It was
there, at the young age of 11, that Loeb decided to
make music his life’s work. Self taught for several
years, he began working with local bands in the area
when he was 13, playing dances at the local youth center
and eventually throughout the metropolitan area.
This early teenage period marked Loeb’s first
exposure to jazz, and he decided that in order to reach
the level of technical skill he’d been striving
for, he would need to study music formally. Along with
local teachers Richie Hart and Hy White, he traveled
as far as Philadelphia to study with jazz guru Dennis
Sandole, who eventually recommended that he study with
the great jazz guitarist Jim Hall in New York City.
After studying with Hall for the last two years of
high school, he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music
in Boston. Two years of intense study at Berklee greatly
strengthened his musicianship – not only as a
guitarist but as a composer and arranger as well –
but the lure of professional work led to his departure
from Berklee in 1976. That same year, he left the suburbs
and moved to New York City.
Throughout his early years in the Big Apple, Loeb began
making a name for himself as a sideman with jazz luminaries
such as drummer Chico Hamilton, Latin percussionist
and bandleader Ray Barreto, flutist Hubert Laws and
various others. He also continued his musical studies
with a vengeance, often practicing up to eight hours
a day.
In 1979, jazz luminary Stan Getz invited Loeb to join
his band. The gig proved to be a pivotal experience
for him, both musically and personally. As a member
of Getz’s group, and the composer of much of the
band’s repertoire, he had the chance to tour the
globe and perform at many of the world’s major
festivals, jazz clubs and concert halls. Eventually,
Loeb became the musical director of the group with his
compositions comprising a large portion of the nightly
repertoire. It was also during this time that he met
and married Carmen Cuesta, a vocalist and songwriter
from Madrid, Spain. In the years since, Loeb has produced
a number of Carmen’s solo recordings, and the
two have collaborated on various musical projects.
After leaving the Getz ensemble, Loeb resettled in
New York and began to pursue a career as a studio musician.
He logged thousands of studio hours recording, composing
and producing albums, soundtracks, television show themes
and jingles. It was here that he developed his talents
as a producer, which would become a major focus of his
career in later years.
In 1985, Loeb joined the group Steps Ahead with Michael
Brecker, Michael Mainieri, Peter Erskine and Victor
Bailey. Returning to the festivals and stages of the
jazz world rekindled his desire to focus on his own
music. In 1988, after nearly ten years of intense studio
work, he made the decision to develop his own recording
career. His first offering as a solo artist was My
Shining Hour, released on Jazz City, a Japanese
label. A year later, he released Magic
Fingers on DMP, an audiophile label that was
one of the first in the world to release recordings
on compact disc.
After four more releases on DMP, Loeb left to sign
with the jazz and world music label Shanachie, where
he released The Music Inside
in 1996 (the album’s title song held the number
1 position on the contemporary jazz charts for six weeks).
Concurrent with his solo career, Loeb also recorded
with Metro, a four-piece contemporary jazz combo that
included keyboardist Mitch Forman, drummer Wolfgang
Haffner and a succession of bassists: Anthony Jackson,
Victor Bailey and Mel Brown. Metro cut four albums on
the Lipstick and Hip Bop labels between 1994 and 2002.
In addition, Loeb played with the Fantasy Band with
bassist John Lee, drummer Lionel Cordew and several
session players. The Fantasy Band recorded three albums
on DMP and Shanachie between 1993 and 1997.
After nine years and seven solo albums, Loeb left Shanachie
and joined Heads Up in late 2006. Presence,
his Heads Up debut, is scheduled for worldwide release
on January 24, 2007. The new album celebrates the importance
of the human element in the creative process. “Nowadays,
there’s a lot of music that gets created in a
laboratory,” says Loeb. “We all have computers,
and we do things long distance. But it never ceases
to amaze me how, as soon as you put the live musicians
into the equation, it’s their presence that brings
the thing to life. That’s the idea behind the
album title – the effect that an individual’s
personality has on the music, both in the context of
a recording and in a live setting.”
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