Bob Rusch | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Robert D. Rusch |
| Born | (1943-04-03)April 3, 1943 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | January 14, 2024(2024-01-14) (aged 80) |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Jazz critic and publisher,record producer |
| Labels | Cadence Jazz,CIMP |
| Website | cadencebuilding.com |
Robert D. Rusch (April 3, 1943 – January 14, 2024) was an Americanjazz critic andrecord producer.[1][2]
Robert D. Rusch was born in New York City on April 3, 1943.[3] studied clarinet and drums in his youth. During the 1970s, Rusch played drums in workshops withJaki Byard andCedar Walton.[4] He wrote for the magazinesDown Beat,Jazz Journal andJazz Forum in the 1970s before foundingCadence Magazine in 1975.[4] He founded two record labels,Cadence Jazz (in 1980) andCIMP (in 1995), and produced or oversaw the release of hundreds of jazz releases; among those musicians he has produced areBill Dixon,Chet Baker,Glenn Spearman,Ernie Krivda,Ivo Perelman,Noah Howard,Dominic Duval,Steuart Liebig,Cecil Taylor,Fred Hess,Anthony Braxton,Bill Barron,Paul Smoker,Jimmy Bennington, andSteve Swell. He has run North Country Record Distribution, an independent jazz label distributor, since 1983. Rusch has donated his large, indexed collection of jazz periodicals to theSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.[4]
Rusch's book,JazzTalk: the Cadence Interviews, was published in 1984.[5] A review at the time byKevin Whitehead noted that it includes "one of the best discussions of the social realities concerning the creation of new music to have appeared in print," in an interview with the trumpeterBill Dixon. Whitehead wrote that "Rusch has conducted hundreds of interviews with improvisers" and considered that this collection, including interviews with "drummerArt Blakey, trumpeterFreddie Hubbard, pianistCecil Taylor, and saxophonistsBilly Harper, Paul Quinchette andVon Freeman," among others, includes both valuable insights into jazz history and the thinking of the interviewee, and "some dead weight as well."[6]
Rusch died on January 14, 2024, at the age of 80.[7]
From 1965 to 1973, Rusch was a teacher at Woodward School, a private elementary school in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.[8] On June 4, 2014, three articles appeared inThe Wall Street Journal[8][9][10] accusing Rusch of "sexually abusing female students as young as 12 years old during the late 1960s and early 1970s."[10] Rusch was interviewed by the newspaper, and in the articles "Rusch acknowledged that he had sex with multiple young students.... 'I accept involvement in some of the things that went on, not all of them, and to that extent I am embarrassed and remorseful and I have been for the better part of 41 years,' said Mr. Rusch, who was 71 years old. 'I carry a lot of guilt.'"[8]
In 2020, three women filed a lawsuit alleging they were "sexually abused and assaulted" by Rusch.[11]
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