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John von Seggern

John von Seggern is a bassist, producer and DJ, relocated to Southern California after a decade spent performing and recording in Asia (Tokyo and Hong Kong) with some of the region's most influential artists. John von now lives in Los Angeles, where he has been playing bass at some of the city's top jazz clubs and doing electronic sound design for film projects.

In 2010, he produced a new album of electronic jazz, "Extreme Measures", a collaboration with West Coast musical innovators John Beasley, Steve Tavaglione, Gary Novak, and Walt Fowler under the band name Simplexity. He also contributed sound design effects and processing to Thomas Newman's Oscar-nominated soundtrack of the Pixar film WALL-E, as well as co-writing a live band score for forthcoming documentary "A Million Spokes". ... von Seggern first started playing music while a young student growing up in Nebraska, playing cello in the school orchestra. Turning to electric and then upright bass as a teenager, he got his first pro gigs in country bands playing street parties in small Midwestern prairie towns.

During his years at Minnesota’s Carleton College he majored in Music, studied jazz, and performed at numerous campus concerts and local venues with his jazz duo the "Pretentious Art Ensemble" (formed with pianist Mark Applebaum, now associate professor of composition at Stanford University). He also spent a semester abroad in India, near the ancient Buddhist and Hindu holy sites in Bodh Gaya and Varanasi, where he learned Indian music theory and studied the classical bamboo flute or bansuri. While in college he won numerous national jazz awards, including a 1st place finish for his "Philistine Quartet" at downbeat magazine's annual MusicFest USA competition, and was featured in downbeat as a young jazz musician to watch.

While performing at MusicFest, he caught the attention of legendary bass player Reggie Workman (ex- John Coltrane Quartet), who offered von Seggern a full scholarship to his prestigious Jazz program at the New School for Social Research in New York City. During his NYC sojourn the young bassist learned the soul of jazz improvisation from master jazz bassists Gary Peacock, Cecil McBee and Lonnie Plaxico as well as Workman. He also had the chance to learn jazz arranging and the deeper art of groove with session drum legend Bernard Purdie, culminating in a gig and recording session with Purdie and other New School students at Manhattan's famous Village Gate club.

After completing a year at the New School program he split for Tokyo, a hotbed of acid jazz and groove in the early 90s. While there von Seggern played on gigs with the United Future Organization, Soul Bossa Trio, and other local luminaries as part of the Michael Emenau World Project. He also performed frequently at jazz clubs all over the Tokyo/Yokohama region with various local musicians, and toured various regions of Japan with French jazz vocalist/keyboardist Patrick Nugier and American avant- garde saxophonist Keshavan Maslak. A tour offer in Hong Kong led him there for what became an auspicious career as a session player and touring bassist for some of the biggest stars in the Asian music world including Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers), Jacky Cheung and others. He ended up playing on five major world tours with Asian artists during his time there.

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Multiple Reviews

Bass Extraordinaire: John von Seggern / Bruno Raberg / Christopher Hale

Read "Bass Extraordinaire: John von Seggern / Bruno Raberg / Christopher Hale" reviewed by Doug Collette


In both its acoustic and electric form, the bass is too often overlooked in the context of musical performances both live and in studio. Yet it is this instrument that arguably confronts the greatest challenge of all in navigating arrangements and musicianship: specifically, to establish and maintain a middle ground of melody and rhythm that simultaneously serves the song, the chart and the players. Apart from a precious few high profile proponents of the instrument--Charles Mingus and Jaco Pastorius come ...

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Album Review

Jon Hassell: Seeing Through Sound: Pentimento Volume Two

Read "Seeing Through Sound: Pentimento Volume Two" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Visionary trumpeter-composer Jon Hassell presents another gift from his late career. The third release on his own Ndeya label, it follows the re-release of his debut album Vernal Equinox (Ndeya, 2020) and is a sequel to Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) (Ndeya, 2018). The structure is a bit different, still eight tracks, but organized as a series of Scenes. The personnel is more diverse as well. In addition to a core group of Rick Cox (electric guitar, bass clarinet, ...

25
Album Review

Jon Hassell: Seeing Through Sound: Pentimento Volume Two

Read "Seeing Through Sound: Pentimento Volume Two" reviewed by Chris May


By the time even the most radical musicians reach their ninth decade, few are any longer making cutting-edge work. But trumpeter, electronicist and composer Jon Hassell, a collaborator with Terry Riley and La Monte Young in the 1960s and the creator of Fourth World music in the 1970s, remains as venturesome as ever. Much of Seeing Through Sound: Pentimento Volume Two was recorded during the sessions for Hassell's lustrous Listening To Pictures: Pentimento Volume One (Ndeya, 2018). ...

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