Patrick Gleeson

Patrick Gerald Gleeson was born in Seattle, Washington, on November 9, 1934, to Irish immigrant parents who envisioned a medical career for their son. He started piano lessons at six. By third grade jazz had taken hold: he practiced from Mary Lou Williams jazz piano books and spent after-school hours with a friend listening to Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton. A cousin arranged a meeting with Ernestine Anderson’s accompanist when Gleeson was thirteen, but his classical teacher and parents refused parallel jazz lessons. Disappointed, he abandoned music for roughly fifteen years while pursuing academics.

Gleeson completed a PhD in eighteenth-century English literature. He did coursework at the University of California, Berkeley, and wrote his dissertation under an advisor at the University of Washington, finishing the thesis in about a month after being challenged to work quickly. He taught for a year at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, then joined the English department at San Francisco State University, where he lectured on eighteenth-century literature while his private life turned toward experimental sound.

In San Francisco Gleeson moved from tape music and Buchla experiments at the Tape Music Center to owning Different Fur with John Vieira, purchasing a Moog III after hearing Switched-On Bach. Commercial and rock sessions funded the studio; late nights on Moog over Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew led producer David Rubinson to introduce him to Herbie Hancock. On Crossings (1972) Gleeson’s overdubs reshaped the album’s electronic side; he then toured with Hancock’s Mwandishi group on ARP 2600 and recorded Sextant (1973). Different Fur hosted parts of Head Hunters and later sessions for artists across genres. Solo albums included Beyond the Sun (1976, Grammy-nominated engineering), Star Wars (1977), Rainbow Delta, and computer realizations of Vivaldi. He engineered or produced for Devo and worked on Byrne and Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Sideman credits spanned Julian Priester’s Love, Love, Lenny White, Freddie Hubbard, Charles Earland, Eddie Henderson, and Joe Henderson. From the 1980s he scored film and TV (Apocalypse Now as Master Synthesist, The Plague Dogs, Crossroads, The Bedroom Window, Knots Landing, Ewoks). After retiring from scoring in 2017 he resumed live sets at Moogfest and elsewhere using Ableton and multichannel systems.

Gleeson’s first marriage ended amid the San Francisco State political turmoil of the late 1960s, a period he later described as pushing him out of academia and into full-time music. He was married for 34 years to Charmaine McClarie, a communications and executive-coaching professional. In later life he lived in Los Angeles in a house he designed, reflecting a long side interest in architecture and design (one of his houses was featured in Architectural Digest). Friends and interviewers noted his dry humor about early modular touring and his lasting friendships with former Mwandishi bandmates despite initial skepticism toward a white synthesist in the group.

At San Francisco State, Gleeson sided with student strikers seeking ethnic studies and opposed Vietnam-era draft policies on campus, leading to arrest and a bitter tenure fight that he framed as political. In music he argued for improvisation and emotional risk over preset convenience, preferring instruments he could re-patch in the moment. Late interviews show him skeptical of nostalgia for vintage hardware among younger players, while still valuing the discipline those machines taught. He praised Wendy Carlos’s classical synthesizer work as uniquely successful and was frank about the limits of his own metronomic approach on Beyond the Sun.

Gleeson is widely credited with helping persuade Herbie Hancock that synthesizers belonged in serious jazz performance and recording. Different Fur became a landmark San Francisco studio. Beyond the Sun remains a reference point for electronic classical realization, and his Apocalypse Now synthesizer work sits inside one of cinema’s most influential sound worlds. The Bob Moog Foundation’s 2026 memorial emphasized his live ARP 2600 pioneering and his mentoring role across jazz, rock, and experimental scenes. Younger synthesists continue to cite his Mwandishi years as proof that modular instruments can improvise at the speed of a jazz ensemble.

Beyond the Sun - An Electronic Portrait of Holst’s The Planets was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Classical (1976/1977 cycle). Wendy Carlos contributed admiring liner notes. Gleeson’s scores for Bruce Conner entered permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Walker Art Center. He was a featured guest at Moogseum anniversary events late in life.

As leader or co-leader: Beyond the Sun (1976), Patrick Gleeson’s Star Wars (1977), Rainbow Delta (1980), Computer Realization of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (early 1980s), The Plague Dogs soundtrack (1982), Driving While Black with Bennie Maupin, Slide (2007), Jazz Criminal with Jim Lang featuring Bennie Maupin and Wallace Roney, Moogfest Live 2019, and later releases including Fourever. Key sideman/production contexts: Hancock’s Crossings and Sextant; Priester’s Love, Love; Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men?; Byrne and Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; Apocalypse Now. Extended interviews appeared in Synapse (1977), Red Bull Music Academy Daily (2015), Sound on Sound / Different Fur features, and PS Audio’s Copper (2021).

Patrick Gleeson died in Los Angeles, California, on July 19, 2026, at the age of 91. Contemporary reports and his Wikipedia entry cite arterial stenosis as the cause. The Bob Moog Foundation announced his death on behalf of his estate in late July 2026. He was survived by his wife, Charmaine McClarie.