Jack Gladstone

Lyric Poet and Musician

Jack Gladstone’s art form blends Native and Western Americana through lyric poetry, music, and spoken word narrative, emphasizing moral consideration within a shared biosphere. He shares his art in both performance and recorded formats. Gladstone, an enrolled citizen of the Blackfeet Nation, was inducted into the University of Washington Alumni Hall of Fame in 2013 for his “contributions and innovations in the field of communications.” Earlier that year, he became the first Montanan (and American Indian) to receive the C.M. Russell Heritage Award, honoring his contributions to the “legacy, culture, life, and country of Russell’s West.” Gladstone was honored with the Governor’s Humanities Award in 2015 and the Montana Arts Council’s Artist Innovation Award last December. In the winter of 2016, he garnered national acclaim from The First Peoples Fund, receiving a Community Spirit Award for “honoring the ‘Collective Spirit’ – which manifests self-awareness and a sense of responsibility to sustain the cultural fabric of a community.”

Gladstone has consistently contributed programs (often pro bono) to Montana’s youth, offering cultural narratives that address larger concerns, such as land stewardship and compassion. In anti-bullying assemblies, for example, he demonstrates “strength in unity” through the story of an arrow, which breaks quite easily by itself, but gains great strength when bundled with others. Seeley Lake teacher Patti Bartlett, who nominated Gladstone for the Governor’s Art Award, praises his “long-standing relationship with Montana’s students and his enduring public presence interpreting Native and Western culture to travelers from around the world.” “During the past three decades, he has emerged as a positive role model, both culturally and athletically, to students in virtually all of Montana’s school districts,” she adds.

Gladstone shares Montana’s indigenous heritage through both story and song, inspiring students of all ethnicities to reflect upon their own background and encouraging them to trace the heritage of their own families. On the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, he is engaged in promoting healthy choices for students and young adults in regards to suicide and addiction prevention. As a heritage keeper, he has written dozens of epic ballads addressing historical events and recognizing Native heroes, from “Navajo Code Talkers” to “Remembering Private Charlo.” His most recent album, Native Anthropology, was named Best Historical Recording by the Native American Music Association. Gladstone co-founded Glacier National Park’s acclaimed lecture series, “Native America Speaks,” in 1985, and has participated every year since in the longest continuously running indigenous speaker series in national park history.

Gladstone has also promoted wildland conservation, adding his support to the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act; advocating protection of the Badger Two Medicine Cultural District (south of Glacier National Park) from resource exploitation; and encouraging buffalo restoration on the Northern Great Plains through the Innii Initiative. “As a musician, Jack is respected by all, and elevates any concert or recording by his skill, commitment and art,” writes acclaimed Montana pianist and composer Philip Aaberg. “He is a strong spokesman for unity and clear thinking, and there is no greater calling than that.”