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Mark Dresser


Mark Dresser (b. 1952) has been composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music professionally since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Emerging from the L.A. "free" jazz scene of the early 70's, Dresser performed with the "Black Music Infinity", led by Stanley Crouch, and included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, David Murray, and James Newton. Concurrently he was performing with the San Diego Symphony. After completing B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCSD where he studied with contrabass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky and a 1983 Fulbright Fellowship in Italy with maestro Franco Petracchi, Dresser relocated to New York in 1986 after being invited to join the quartet of composer/saxophonist, Anthony Braxton. Dresser played with Braxton's longest performing quartet for nine years.

Once in NY, Dresser began working with a wide variety of musicians in the greater New York community including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Davis, Fred Frith, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, and others. He focused on composing for a pair of cooperative groups, Tambastics with flutist Robert Dick, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, and pianist Denman Maroney and the string trio, ARCADO, with violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Hank Roberts. Numerous European tours, awards, six CD's, and several commissions resulted, including "For Not the Law," a composition for ARCADO and orchestra from WDR Radio of Cologne Germany, "Armadillo" for ARCADO and the WDR Big Band, and "Bosnia," a work written for the Trio du Clarinettes of France and ARCADO.

His current collaborative projects include the trio, C/D/E, master drummer Andrew Cyrille and with multi-reed player virtuoso, Marty Ehrlich, a duo, trio and quartet with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney, the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Helias, a duo with the cello virtuoso, Frances-Marie Uitti , a duo with the gifted drummer Susie Ibarra, and a duo with celebrated trombonist, Ray Anderson, .

Since 1999, Mark Dresser's trio includes flutist Matthias Ziegler and pianist Denman Maroney. Their electroacoustic performance inspired video artist, Tom Leeser to create two video works, Subtonium and Sonomatopoeia which the trio performs live in performance in addition to “Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper” a solo bass collaboration with animator, Sarah Jane Lapp.

Mark Dresser's Modular Ensemble performs his chamber works. Earlier projects include the mixed quintet, Force Green featuring Dave Douglas on trumpet, Theo Bleckmann on voice, Denman Maroney on hyperpiano, and Phil Haynes on drums for Soul Note. THe Mark Dresser Quartet and two different trios perform his music for silent film. He has composed and recorded original music for two silent film projects; the German expressionist silent film classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Knitting Factory) and the French Surrealist collaboration of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou. (Knitting Factory) Solo performance is one of Dresser's specialties. He has designed custom made electronics for purposes of amplifying normally inaudible sounds. Invocation (Knitting Factory) is a solo CD documenting compositions from 1983-94. (Knitting Factory) Additional original solo bass music was composed and performed for the New York Shakespeare Festival Production of HENRY VI.

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Album Review

Mark Dresser: Tines of Change

Read "Tines of Change" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Musicista poliedrico e aperto, ma anche grande ricercatore sul proprio strumento, Mark Dresser non è nuovo alla documentazione del proprio lavoro in solitudine sul contrabbasso, svolto anche con la collaborazione del suo artigiano di riferimento --Kent McLagan --che dal 2000 continua a sviluppare per lui soluzioni innovative atte a sfruttare le molteplici possibilità sonore dello strumento.Così, dopo Unveil (2005) e Guts: Bass Explorations, Investigations & Explanations (2010), nei quali usava strumenti con ponti modificati e pick up integrati ...

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Album Review

Mark Dresser: Tines of Change

Read "Tines of Change" reviewed by Jeff Schwartz


Since his arrival as a member of Anthony Braxton's mid-1980s quartet, Mark Dresser has been expanding the sonic palette of the upright bass. Like Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, and Joëlle Léandre before him, Dresser drew from both the classical avant-garde of players such as Bertram Turetzky and Fernando Grillo and the more intuitive improvisational approaches of Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, William Parker, and others. His solo recordings are important documents of this work; Tines of Change is the latest.

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Album Review

Mark Dresser: Tines of Change

Read "Tines of Change" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Anyone familiar with the work of bassist Mark Dresser knows that he is an uncompromising innovator, always dedicated to pushing his music into new territory; and if that requires novel technical modifications to his instrument itself, then so be it. He has partnered with fellow bassist Kent McLagan as far back as 2001 to create adapted basses using additional pickups, which allow Dresser to create multiple pitches for each string of his bass. On his most recent solo project, Tines ...

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Album Review

Sara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck

Read "Sara Schoenbeck" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Sara Schoenbeck is cast against type in the world of bassoonists. The versatile double reed, broad-ranged instrument dates to the Renaissance and is commonly found in wind ensembles and chamber orchestras. But Schoenbeck has brought her classical-leaning instrument to creative music in an electrifying body of work. Her self-titled leader debut is the first such project of her career. A series of nine duets allows Schoenbeck to fully explore the scope of the bassoon in close settings. Not ...

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Album Review

Pedro Melo Alves: In Igma

Read "In Igma" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Jazz has had a presence in Portugal since the mid-1920s but had found itself in decline from the 1970s. The revolutionary jazz scene in Portugal, circa the 2010s, has produced a profusion of rising stars. Violist Ernesto Rodrigues, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, Orquestra Jazz De Matosinhos, and the Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble are among those who have emerged as influential beyond the Portuguese border. Two driving forces in that country's improvised music—drummer-percussionist Pedro Melo Alves and experimental guitarist Abdul Moimême—team ...

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Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Deep Resonance

Read "Deep Resonance" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is an exceptional innovator, even in a genre where originality and inventiveness are the norms. A stalwart of the international creative music scene, Perelman excels in small, intimate group settings. His collaboration with the string trio Arcado, the stimulating Deep Resonance, is a dramatic and introspective recording which draws equally on free improvisation and western classical music traditions. The first movement is constructed out of a mix of overlapping duets alternating with four individual stream-of-consciousness ...

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Album Review

Ivo Perelman with Arcado String Trio: Deep Resonance

Read "Deep Resonance" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Throughout his long and prolific recording career, Ivo Perelman has recorded with a large number of free improvisation's leading lights. Pianist Matthew Shipp stands at the top of the pile, with over two dozen joint appearances; Joe Morris, Gerald Cleaver, Whit Dickey, William Parker, and many others help comprise the long list of associates he's maintained since the 1990s. But one would be remiss to ignore the occasional, yet important, work he has done with string players. Violinist/violist Mat Maneri ...

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Recording

Jen Shyu and Mark Dresser - Synastry (Pi Recordings, 2011)

Jen Shyu and Mark Dresser - Synastry (Pi Recordings, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Vocalist Jen Shyu and bassist Mark Dresser are uniquely qualified to perform in a duet setting together. After Shyu began studying with saxophonist and musical theorist Steve Coleman, she was soon invited to join his band, adding a fascinating new dimension to his recent albums. Mark Dresser has had a very successful career in all aspects of jazz and improvisatory music, performing with a wide range of luminaries and recording many albums under his own name, but really seems to ...

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Interview

UYS: Mark Dresser Interview

UYS: Mark Dresser Interview

Source: underyourskin


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Event

Tom McNalley / John Gross / Joe McNalley / Mark Dresser / Billy Mintz, November 8 in San Diego

Tom McNalley / John Gross / Joe McNalley / Mark Dresser / Billy Mintz,  November 8 in San Diego

Source: All About Jazz

On Thursday, November 8th at 7pm, there will be a concert at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla. The concert will feature original compositions by Billy Mintz and Tom McNalley.

The first set will be: John Gross - tenor sax Billy Mintz - drums

The second set will be: Tom McNalley - electric guitar John Gross - tenor sax Joe McNalley - Hutchins bass Mark Dresser - Hutchins ...

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Event

Bert Turetzky and Mark Dresser in concert Together!

Bert Turetzky and Mark Dresser in concert Together!

Source: All About Jazz

*****FOR IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE***** SIDE A/B # 6 FEATURING BERT TURETZKY AND MARK DRESSER This press release is sent to inform you of the upcoming concerts (March 26 in L.A. and April 1, 2005 in San Diego) at L.A. Harbor College Lira Concert Series and Dizzy's (San Diego) which will feature new compositions by performer/composer Alan Lechusza and showcase two legendary bass players; Bert Turetzky and Mark Dresser. The music straddles the lines between avant-classical music and rock n' roll. ...


"Mark Dresser is an inventor. He also may be the most important bassist to emerge since 1980 in jazz or classical music."

Harvey Pekar, Boston Herald, February 1, 1998

"Mr. Dresser, a bassist who is one of the great instrumental forces in recent American jazz outside of the mainstream..."

New York Times, February 25, 2000

"Dresser's Music distinguishes itself, as was also heard in his solo work, "Invocation" by ingenuity and originality in the sound production, in addition, by fascinating sound atmospheres."

Basler Zeitung - February 20, 2000

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Tines of Change

Pyroclastic Records
2023

buy

Sara Schoenbeck

Pyroclastic Records
2021

buy

In Igma

Clean Feed Records
2020

buy

Deep Resonance

Fundacja Sluchaj
2020

buy

Ain't Nothing But a...

Clean Feed Records
2019

buy

Ain’t Nothing But A...

Clean Feed Records
2019

buy

Prolotine

From: Tines of Change
By Mark Dresser

Ain't Nothing But A Cyber Coup & You

From: Ain't Nothing But a Cyber Coup...
By Mark Dresser

Hobby Lobby Horse

From: Sedimental You
By Mark Dresser

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