Jazz - alto sax, vocal
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Bob Mover on Village Jazz /
Bob Mover on the European Jazz Network
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"His music rings with a profundity that speaks to both heart and mind... Mover's voice is his own... worth listening to - carefully." (Chuck Berg, Downbeat Magazine)
"Mover seems to extend the horn's two and a half octave range. He makes the instrument sound not only taller but, through feats of phrasing articulation and judicious over-blowing, actually wider... He sounds open and roundly bell-like in the style of Sonny Rollins, who achieved the same effect on tener sax. His playing has some of the heft and bite of Jackie McLean and the intelligent architecture of Lee Konitz. Neither an avant-gardist nor exactly a mainstreamer, Mover is one of the most accomplished and thoroughly engaging saxophonists around." (Eric Levin, People Magazine)
"One of the best alto players to emerge in the Seventies and maybe the only one determinedly mining the Parker / Konitz / Rollins connection." (Gary Giddins, Village Voice)
"If it's real emotion coupled to sensitivity and authentic roots in the jazz tradition you're after, look no further than Bob Mover's second album Xanadu. He is a young seasoned veteran who has been overlooked - unrated rather than underrated. Well, here's a chance for the hippies, dippies and general run-of-the-mill jazz intelligentsia to wake up and live right. This isa statement by a mature artist, every inch a dedicated jazzman; in the company of some equally strong peers." (Ira Gitler, Jazz Times)
"This is the kind of high spirited performance that represents the ultimate jazz expression." (John S. Wilson, New York Times)
"Bob Mover plays his battered old horn with a beauty born of dedication to the purest jazz principles. The saxophonist swings relentlessly, imbuing each note with the perfect phrasing of a true master." (John Sobol, The Montreal Gazzette)
"Mover, in an extremely stylized way, has personalized the bebop tradition into something uniquely his own." (Mark Miller, Toronto Globe And Mail)
"Jazz a 200%" (Francois Lacharme, Jazz Hot Magazine)
Born on March 22, 1952, Bob Mover started playing the saxophone at age 13 in Miami, Florida. His first influences were Lester Young and Stan Getz and, of course, Charlie Parker. Shortly after, he met the great Ira Sullivan who became his mentor and continues to be a strong influence on his musical vision. Two years later, Phil Woods heard him in a high school all-star band and gave him a scholarship to study with him that summer in New Hope, Pennsylvania at Ramblerny Camp for the performing arts.
While still in his teens, Bob sat in and learned from such luminaries as Roy Eldridge, Wynton Kelly, Zoot Sims, Kenny Dorham, James Moody, Jimmy Rushing, Anita O'Day, Richie Kamuca, Evelyn Blakey and Howard McGhee while establishing important friendships with Lee Konitz and Sonny Rollins.
At the age of 21, Mover joined the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop for a stay at the Five Spot in New York City. He then joined Chet Baker's group before leaving for Brazil in 1974 where he stayed six months, working with samba legends Johnny Alf and Lucio Alves.
Upon returning to New York in 1975, he rejoined Baker's band, working regularly in New York clubs, as well as performing at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, touring the mid-west and California and making his first appearances with Mr. Baker at La Grande Parade Du Jazz (Nice, France), Jazz Festival Laren (Holland) and the Middleheim Jazz Festival (Antwerp, Belgium).
Following his stint with Baker, he began leading his own groups frequently at New York's Sweet Basil, Strykers Pub, Barbara's and Boomers. He recorded his first two albums as a leader - "On The Move" (Choice) and "Bob Mover" (Vanguard) - the latter receiving a 4 1/2 star rating in Downbeat Magasine. During this period, Mr. Mover also co-led a group with one of his mentors, Lee Konitz, playing clubs in the USA and Canada and recording an album "Affinity - The Lee Konitz Quintet" (Chiaroscuro) which also received 4 1/2 stars in Downbeat.
In 1980-81 Mover taught improvisation workshops at Berklee College Of Music in Boston before getting a call from Chet Baker to do another tour of Europe. This tour yielded two albums: "Chet Baker - Live At Club Salt Peanuts, Koln: Volumes 1 & 2" (Circle).
Back in New York in 1981 and 1982, Bob recorded two more albums under his own name for Don Schlitten's Xanadu label: "In The True Tradition" and "Things Unseen" - which received glowing reviews throughout the world. He toured Europe again in 1982 with Swiss vocalist Miriam Klein in a group that included the great Kenny Clarke and Sir Roland Hanna on piano and Isla Eckinger on bass.
From 1983 to 1986, mover resided in Montreal, recording his fifth album as leader - "The Nightbathers" (Justin Time) with Paul Bley and John Abercrombie.
Returning to New York in early 1987, Mover formed a musical partnership with his longtime friend, the great Walter Davis Jr. Combining their talents, Davis / Mover toured together in Europe and America playing festivals and concerts in France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, the USA and at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1989 (with Richard Davis and the late Freddie Waits) until Davis' untimely death in 1990. During this period, Mr. Davis featured Mover on four tracks of his cd "Illumination" recorded for the Japanese label Pony Canyon / Jazz City in 1988 with Ron Carter and Kenny Washington. Mover also recorded his own cd "You Go To My Head" for the same label in December of that year featuring Rufus Reid, Bennie Green, Victor Lewis and Steve Hall.
1989 brought Mover to Osaka, Japan to perform at Expo '89. Later that same year, he participated in the "Alto Summit: Homage to Charlie Parker" concerts at La Villette in Paris along with Jackie McLean, Phil Woods, Clarence "C" Sharpe, Vincent Herring and Frank Morgan with a rhythm section consisting of Walter Davis Jr., Percy Heath and Roy Haynes. He also performed a concert / lecture / dinner music series on the music and lives of Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and Sonny Rollins at the McMichael Gallery Of Art in Kleinburg, Ontario.
He was invited to play in june 1992 in Israel at the Super Jazz Festival, Tel Aviv, in a tribute to Charlie Parker with Walter Bishop and Ray Brown. During this period, he also began to utilize his talents as a vocalist and began to expand, adding the tenor sax, and occasionally soprano, in 1995.
Since early 1997, Mover has once again made New York City his base of musical operations recording his seventh album as leader, "Television" (DSM). He also recorded in Vienna, Austria as the improvising soloist on an original "Third Stream" opera by American composer Larry Loftquist based on the text of Aggamemnon.
He continues to be, with the warmth of his sound and the refined architecture of his phrasing, one of the most complete jazz musicians on the New York and international scenes today.
The Night Bathers, Bob Mover Trio featuring Paul Bley and John Abercrombie, Justin Time Records
For those students of jazz who are unable to travel to NYC or be at some of Bob's master classes, study by correspondence is available. Cassette tapes of performances, musical scores or transcriptions to be critiqued, or questions about jazz are welcome. Please see
Updated: 1999Aug26
He's been playing now and then at an east-side Manhattan pub called Nimrod's,
occasionally with vocalist Giacomo Gates but usually just with a local rhythm
section. He just finished a one-night-a-week stint at Cannon's Pub, located
on the upper west side. And beginning this Sunday, he will begin an
association as workshop leader and private teacher at a space called
Off-Wall-Street Jam.
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Southern Ontario Region Jazz Events Page
- check here for Bob's gigs when he's visiting the Southern Ontario region /
Fisk / Norley / Westmore Group