Hans Glawischnig – Bass

I often find myself wondering how this Austrian-born bass player got to be the first-call player with an intensely Puerto-Rican specialist Miguel Zenon and have to conclude it is nothing more complicated that Glawishnig is just s***-hot! Zenon charts can be astonishingly complicated and difficult to play and there is no doubt that this guy earns his place in Zenon ensembles every time he picks up his bass.

Acoustic/ electric bassist and composer Hans Glawischnig grew up in Graz, Austria. His father, a pianist, leader of the free jazz group, The Neighbors, educator, and longtime chief conductor of the NDR big band in Hamburg, Germany, encouraged Hans to pursue a career in music. His American mother, having studied Art History, was an avid music fan, unrelenting supporter and emotional bedrock for Hans until her untimely passing in 2016.

At the age of 6, Glawischnig enrolled as a violinist in the the Academy of Music in Graz. When he was 13, Hans took up the electric bass guitar, and by age 16 had begun studying the acoustic bass. Glawischnig moved to the United States to enroll at Berklee College of Music in Boston and went on to get a Masters in performance from Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Hans has performed with a wide variety of contemporary Jazz and Latin/Brazilian musicians including Chick Corea, Billy Childs, Bobby Watson, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Barretto, Donny McCaslin, David Sanchez, Paquito d’Rivera, Ravi Coltrane, The Manhattan Transfer, Mark Murphy, David Samuels, Bobby Sanabria, Rick Margitza, Garry Dial, Billy Harper, Richie Beirach, Billy Hart, Joe Locke, Dave Binney, Ken Hatfield, Adam Rogers, Stefon Harris, Duduka da Fonseca, Billy Drewes, James Moody, Jamey Haddad, and Brian Lynch, just to name a few. As a sideman, Hans has over 100 recordings to his credit and has  released three critically acclaimed recordings as a leader, Common Ground (2003), Panorama (2008) and Jahira (2012).

Hans has been a member of the highly regarded Miguel Zenon Quartet since 2000. Currently Hans can also be seen touring the world with Manuel Valera and as a member of the Billy Childs Quartet, 2018 Grammy Winner for Best Jazz Album of the Year. He is also an active educator, having conducted seminars and workshops in the USA, Austria, Mexico and Switzerland, as well as teaching privately in
New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The transcription is the tune ‘Traigo Salsa’ from the 2019 Miguel Zenon album, ‘Sonero (The Music Of Ismael Rivera)’. Written by composer Javier Vásquez Lauzurica, the tune is wonderfully arranged with a kind of hybrid montuno in 9:4 (I have transcribed it as alternating bars of 5:4 and 4:4 to make it easier to read). There are some serious hurdles in here, however, which is typical Zenon. The man couldn’t play in 4:4 if his life depended on it! I listen to a lot of this guy and would go anywhere to play with players of this calibre (except the US – nobody in Europe wants to go the the US at the moment – if they wanted to come over here, though, they are more than welcome in Felixstowe).