Joe Gallivan

Joe Gallivan

Joe Gallivan (born August 9, 1937, Rochester, New York) is an American jazz and avant-garde musician. He plays drums, percussion and synthesizer. Gallivan's first professional experience came at the age of 15 while in Miami. He played early on with Eduardo Chavez, Art Mooney and Charlie Spivak, as well as with the Modern Jazz Orchestra. He attended the University of Miami and then moved to New York in 1961, where he had a big band with Donald Byrd that featured Eric Dolphy, Pepper Adams, Don Ellis, Johnny Coles, Julius Watkins, and Duke Pearson before returning to Miami the next year. There he conducted for the TV show Music U.S.A. and led the band A Train of Thought. In the 1960s he became interested in electronic music and musique concrète, and began meeting with Vladimir Ussachevsky. Robert Moog had Gallivan help test his Moog drum system, which Gallivan used on the 1974 Gil Evans album There Comes a Time. In addition to his two years with Evans, Gallivan worked throughout the 1970s (and beyond) with saxophonist Charles Austin and three years with Larry Young in their group Love Cry Want. (“Love Cry Want” is also the title of the group's 1972 recording, released on CD in 1997 on Gallivan's label Newjazz.com.) Gallivan moved to Europe in 1976, living in various major cities across the Continent through 1989. While in London he was considered as a replacement for Robert Wyatt in the band Soft Machine, but did not end up joining the group, instead collaborating with its former members Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper. They worked together with Gallivan and Keith Tippett as a quartet for the 1976-77 albums Cruel But Fair and Mercy Dash. While living in Frankfurt in the 1980s, Gallivan worked with Albert Mangelsdorff, Heinz Sauer, and Christoph Lauer. After returning to the U.S. in 1989, Gallivan was based out of Hawaii for much of the 1990s. During this time, he recorded in London the critically acclaimed CD Innocence, featuring Elton Dean, Evan Parker, and a host of other luminaries of London's avant-garde music scene. He performed three years in a row at Ronnie Scott's Club in London with Brian Cuomo on piano and Jackie Ryan on vocals. During this time, the trio released two CDs, one live and one in-studio. Joe Gallivan also released other two CDs in collaboration with Brian Cuomo, one a duet, and one a trio featuring saxophonist Elton Dean. In 1998, Gallivan recorded two award-winning CDs (Essential Recordings of the Year for The Wire Magazine in London), Electric/Electronic/Electric, in the trio Powerfield, with keyboardist Pat Thomas and guitarist Gary Smith, and Gallivan/Smith, in duet with Gary Smith. The same year, he recorded in Barcelona a critically acclaimed CD "Des del silenci" with the octet Ektal Ensemble, including Barcelona trumpetist Benet Palet and percussionist Marti Perramon, plus the Gnawan quartet Nas Marrakech featuring vocalist Abdel-Jahlil Koddsi. In 2000, Joe Gallivan's ensemble The Rainforest Initiative (with saxophonists Evan Parker, Elton Dean, Charles Austin, and John McMinn, bassist Marcio Mattos, and Hawaiian chanters Lei'ohu Ryder and Mahalani Po'epo'e) headlined at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York City. This performance was recorded and broadcast for three years after on Black Entertainment Network. During the 2000s, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD reviewed (favorably) many of Joe Gallivan's recordings. Gallivan continues to perform and record in Europe and in the United States. His recent works include Vienna, a live recording in trio (also called Rainforest Initiative) with bassist Paul Rogers and classical Indian violinist Anupriya Deotale, and LA on which he plays synthesizer with saxophonist/flautist Benn Clatworthy. In 2011 Joe Gallivan, the sole surviving member of the 1970s group Love Cry Want, recorded a new Love Cry Want CD with guitarist Tom McNalley and bassist Michelle Webb, released in 2011 on the Indigo with Stars label. Gallivan has five children: Monica Gallivan Couch, Cory Gallivan, Jessica Gallivan, Dakota Gallivan and Max Gallivan.

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