Robert D. "Bob" Rusch (born April 3, 1943 in New York City) is an American jazz critic and record producer. Rusch has also been accused of allegedly sexual abusing students when he worked as a teacher.

Biography

Rusch studied clarinet and drums in his youth. During the 1970s, Rusch played drums in workshops with Jaki Byard and

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. He wrote for the magazines '' Down Beat'', '' Jazz Journal'' and '' Jazz Forum'' in the 1970s before founding '' Cadence Magazine'' in 1975. He founded two record labels, Cadence Jazz (in 1980) and CIMP (in 1995), and produced or oversaw the release of hundreds of jazz releases; among those musicians he has produced are

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, Ivo Perelman, Noah Howard, Dominic Duval,

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, Fred Hess, Anthony Braxton,

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, Paul Smoker, and Steve Swell. He has run North Country Record Distribution, an independent jazz label distributor, since 1983. Rusch has donated his large, indexed collection of jazz periodicals to the

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. Rusch's book, ''JazzTalk: the Cadence Interviews'', was published in 1984. A review at the time by Kevin Whitehead noted that it includes "one of the best discussions of the social realities concerning the creation of new music to have appeared in print," in an interview with the trumpeter

. Whitehead wrote that "Rusch has conducted hundreds of interviews with improvisers" and considers that this collection, including interviews with "drummer

Art Blakey Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...

, trumpeter

Freddie Hubbard Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...

, pianist

, and saxophonists Billy Harper, Paul Quinchette and Von Freeman," among others, includes both valuable insights into jazz history and the thinking of the interviewee, and "some dead weight as well."

Sexual abuse allegations

From 1965-1973, Rusch was a teacher at Woodward School, a private elementary school in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. On June 4, 2014, three articles appeared in '' The Wall Street Journal'' accusing Rusch of "sexually abusing female students as young as 12 years old during the late 1960s and early 1970s." Rusch was interviewed by the newspaper, and in the articles "Rusch acknowledged that he had sex with multiple young students.... 'I accept involvement in some of the things that went on, not all of them, and to that extent I am embarrassed and remorseful and I have been for the better part of 41 years,' said Mr. Rusch, who is now 71 years old. 'I carry a lot of guilt.'" In 2020, three women filed a lawsuit alleging they were "sexually abused and assaulted" by Rusch.Decades later, three women accuse former Brooklyn private school teacher of sex abuse
by Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News, July 30, 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rusch, Bob 1943 births Living people Record producers from New York (state) Jazz writers American music critics