Transcendence
Music of Pat Metheny
(FMR Records)
Bob Gluck has lived many lives. His life at the keyboard is only one of them, and it’s been such a rewarding one. Working in tandem with electric bassist Christopher Dean Sullivan and drummer Karl Latham, Gluck’s latest release, under the Transcendence moniker, Music of Pat Metheny, is a welcome exploration of one of contemporary jazz’s great composers and key influences. What makes the experiment so delightful, outside of Gluck’s own artistry, is his method of approaching the work from the keyboard instead of Metheny’s instrument, the guitar. In lieu of Metheny’s right hand on the guitar, Gluck’s firm left hand on the piano brings a new voice to numbers like “Question & Answer” and “The Bat.” Sullivan, in particular, jibes with the plan, not echoing early Metheny cohort Mark Egan, but bringing a similar sense of invention. A Keith Jarrett number, “Everything That Lives Laments,” is appropriately elegiac; both a conversation and a meditation on existence and negation.
This article appears in January 2026.
