* En anglais uniquement
Based in Brooklyn, Detroit-bred drummer, composer, and bandleader
Gerald Cleaver is among the most agile and wide-ranging first-call musicians on the 21st century jazz scene. Known in the Motor City area as both a musician and an educator from the mid-'80s onward, his national emergence at the end of the '90s was precipitated by his participation in a series of diverse recordings led by artists including
Rodney Whitaker (Hidden Kingdom), Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory (Nine to Get Ready),
Bill McHenry (
Graphic), and
Joe Morris (Underthru). These efforts brought his powerful, detailed drumming to worldwide attention.
Cleaver's style is well-suited to inside or outside playing, his beat can range from swing time to no time; he is just as comfortable with standard forms as he is hybrid or new ones, whether it's playing in fixed or odd meters, or even in complete abstraction.
Cleaver understands that in jazz it's the shared truths between styles that connect the dots between aspects of its tradition: feeling, gesture, groove, structure, harmony, tension, release, dynamics, dialogue, and common roots. As a sideman, he has worked with everyone from
Jeremy Pelt,
Craig Taborn,
Miroslav Vitous, and
Ivo Perelman to
Matthew Shipp,
William Parker, and
Tomasz Stanko, to name a scant few. He has co-led recordings with
Lotte Anker, Andrew Bishop, and
Taylor Ho Bynum among others. His own dates, including
Adjust in 2001,
Gerald Cleaver's Detroit in 2007,
Be It as I See It in 2009, and Live at Firehouse 12 in 2019, reveal a drummer whose discipline is equanimous with his appetite for taking risks. Likewise,
Cleaver has also explored experimental electronic music with Signs and Griots, released respectively in 2020 and 2021.
Cleaver was born and raised on Detroit's West Side and began playing drums early thanks to the inspiration of his father, drummer John Cleaver, who may have held a day job but was a regular on the city's jazz scene by night. In addition to playing the kit, the younger
Cleaver received formal musical training on violin and trumpet. While still in high school, the young drummer worked with respected area musicians including bassist
Ali Jackson, trumpeter
Marcus Belgrave, tenor saxophonist
Donald Walden, guitarist
A. Spencer Barefield, and reedsman
Wendell Harrison, among others. An NEA Fellowship allowed him to study with drummer
Victor Lewis;
Cleaver then earned a music degree from the University of Michigan. During his years as a student, he met and formed a band with keyboardist
Craig Taborn called the Tracey Science Quartet.
Cleaver went on to become a jazz educator after graduating and taught in Detroit in the early '90s before joining the jazz faculty at the University of Michigan in 1995. In 1997 he both penned and played on the composition "Pilgrim's Progress" for bassist
Rodney Whitaker's debut Hidden Kingdom on DIW.
Taborn recommended the drummer to
Roscoe Mitchell, who hired him to play in a trio with bassist
Malachi Favors on The Day and the Night. Two years later, he appeared with Mitchell & the Note Factory on the seminal
ECM release Nine to Get Ready.
Cleaver can be heard in a number of groups and settings from this period, including recordings by the
Joe Morris Quartet, the
Matthew Shipp Quartet, on bassist
Chris Lightcap's leader debut
Lay-Up, and
Taborn's 2001 Thirsty Ear offering,
Light Made Lighter. That same year, with his
Veil of Names unit,
Cleaver issued his own debut long-player,
Adjust, on Fresh Sound New Talent. His sidemen included guitarist
Ben Monder, violinist/violist
Mat Maneri, bassist
Reid Anderson, saxophonist Andrew Bishop, and
Taborn.
Cleaver spent the next few years recording and/or touring with Mitchell & the Note Factory,
Lotte Anker,
Mario Pavone,
Charles Gayle, and more. 2007 proved a seminal year for the drummer. He played on no less than seven high-profile jazz recordings including
Miroslav Vitous' Universal Syncopations, and
Sylvie Courvoisier's Lonelyville, and issued his sophomore leader date
Gerald Cleaver's Detroit, comprised entirely of his own compositions. The following year,
Cleaver's star had fully ascended: He played on no less than a dozen albums in 2008 (an annual average he has more or less maintained since). He made his first appearance with trombonist
Samuel Blaser's quartet on
7th Heaven, played drums in saxophonist
J.D. Allen's trio for
I Am I Am, and in
Gebhard Ullmann's Basement Research for Don't Touch My Music. In 2009,
Cleaver, bassist
William Parker, and
Taborn released the acclaimed debut by their Farmers by Nature project on Aum Fidelity. He also worked with
Vitous again on the acclaimed
ECM outing
Remembering Weather Report, with
Eric Revis on
Laughter's Necklace of Tears, with
Taborn and
Anker on the studio outing
Floating Islands, and with
Michael Formanek on the celebrated
The Rub and Spare Change (also on
ECM).
Cleaver issued his third album for Fresh Sound New Talent in 2010:
Be It as I See It featured a slew of players including
Taborn, Bishop,
Maneri,
Tony Malaby, and singer Jean Carla Rodea; it drew positive critical notice across the globe. That same year, the drummer played in
William Parker's Organ Quartet on
Uncle Joe's Spirit House, with
Pelt on Men of Honor, in pianist
John Hébert's Trio for
Spiritual Lover (the pair also teamed up on recordings by
Taylor Ho Bynum and
Rodrigo Amado that year). Farmers by Nature regrouped for
Out of This World's Distortions in 2011.
Cleaver began a years-long collaboration with saxophonist
Ivo Perelman on The Hour of the Star, and played on recordings by
Ellery Eskelin and
Blaser, among others. The following year,
Cleaver reprised his role with
Pelt on the high-charting album
Soul, in
Formanek's studio group for
Small Places, and with
Perelman on several albums for Leo, including
The Foreign Legion, that also included
Shipp in the lineup.
By 2013,
Cleaver had established a familiar group of players he worked with in various capacities. He continued to work with
Perelman,
Shipp,
Hébert, and
Bynum, but he also joined Polish trumpeter
Tomasz Stanko's quartet for
Wisława and played on the
Taborn trio's
Chants (with bassist
Thomas Morgan). The next year kicked off with
Cleaver as a member of the intrepid quintet
Plymouth for their self-titled debut on RareNoise. The band's other members included
Morris and
Mary Halvorson on guitars,
Lightcap on bass, and
Jamie Saft on organ and piano.
Cleaver also joined
Parker in playing on tenor saxophonist
James Brandon Lewis' celebrated Okeh debut,
Divine Travels, recorded the double-length
Love and Ghosts with Farmers by Nature, and played on
Mark Weinstein's
Latin Jazz Underground. Back in 2013,
Cleaver worked in
Charles Lloyd's group for a live date in Wroclaw, Poland. The saxophonist's resultant album,
Wild Man Dance, was drawn from that date and was issued on Blue Note in 2015. The drummer also played on
Shipp's Our Lady of the Flowers, with
Lightcap's
Bigmouth on Epicenter, and with the
Blaser quartet for Spring Rain. Somehow,
Cleaver also found time to teach master classes in New York and Ann Arbor; he traveled and recorded for the remainder of the year.
In 2016,
Cleaver's partnership with
Perelman exploded: he appeared on all six of
The Art of the Improv Trio volumes that year (with different third members), and on the quartet date Breaking Point and the quintet offering Octagon. He also played on
Vitous' seminal
The Music of Weather Report. The following year found
Cleaver mostly touring and teaching, but he did find time to renew his partnership with
Stanko on
December Avenue, and to play with drummer
Tomas Fujiwara on
Triple Double and the
Yelena Eckemoff Quintet for In the Shadow of a Cloud. In 2018,
Cleaver and saxophonist
Travis LaPlante formed the duo
Subtle Degrees and recorded their debut album,
A Dance That Empties. Back in 2016, the drummer had recorded in a French cave with
Rova saxophonist
Larry Ochs; their collaboration was issued by Rogue Art as Songs of the Wild Cave in October of 2018.
In 2019,
Ochs and
Cleaver teamed up again, this time in a trio with guitarist
Nels Cline for
What Is to Be Done on Clean Feed. Before the decade ended,
Cleaver played with
Lightcap on SuperBigMouth, and in a quartet co-led by
Enrico Rava and
Joe Lovano for the album
Roma. In November,
Sunnyside issued the archival date Violet Hour. The personnel in the freewheeling program, recorded in 2006, included saxophonists
J.D. Allen and Bishop,
Pelt on trumpet,
Ben Waltzer on piano, and
Lightcap on bass. Inspired since the '80s by innovations in electronic music made by his fellow Detroit natives,
Cleaver entered the 2020s with Signs, a strictly electronic work, and Griots, which synthesized his machines with contributions from trumpeter
Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist
David Virelles. The
577 label released the former in 2020, and in 2021 jointly issued the latter on Positive Elevation and Meakusma. Between the two albums,
Cleaver was heard on
William Parker's
Mayan Space Station and on the collaborative Welcome Adventure, Vol. 1, with saxophonist
Daniel Carter,
Parker, and
Shipp. Cut on a single October day in 2019, it also produced 2022's Welcome to Adventure, Vol. 2; both were issued by
577 Records. ~ Thom Jurek & Andy Kellman