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Mark O'Leary

Mark O'Leary was born in Cork City Ireland.Being mainly auto didactic on guitar he moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17 to study at Musicians Institute,from where he later graduated. He has presented his music in 29 countries and has played at some of the worlds top Jazz festivals and contemporary Jazz venues. He has toured Europe as a member of Canadian Pianist Paul Bley's trio,he has performed in duo with Jack DeJohnette,in a jazz trio with Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford, in duo with Han Bennink,composed and performed classical music with Cikada string quartet,collaborated in an all electronics setting with Sound Artist Gunter Muller, Erdem Helveciouglu and Jakob Riis,in a free improvisation combo with Evan Parker and Sunny Murray, performed in concerts with Anders Jormin and Audun Kleive, played Norwegian folk music with Nils Okland, Swedish folk music with Mats Eden, Jazz with Uri Caine, he has performed in seperate projects with trumpeters Axel Dorner,Kenny Wheeler, Thomas Heberer and Jeff Kaiser. He has the distinction of having played in duo with Paul Bley, Bobo Stenson and Matthew Shipp. In 2004 he toured Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro with Vasil Hadzimanov and Marco Djordevic. He also toured in Macedonia with Guitarist Toni Kitanovski and Drummer Alexander Sekhulovski. He also represented Ireland in the Athens European jazz festival. He has also worked in a trio with ex Weather Report/Jaco Pastorius Drummer Peter Erskine and Palle Danielsson. He has also collaborated with the innovative percussionists z'ev, Alex Cline ,Hans Kristian Kjos Sorensen and Terje Isungset.He has also collaborated with Stale Storlokken in contemporary trio using church organ and with John Herndon of Tortoise in the Underground Jazz Trio. He has also worked in different projects with Slava Ganelin and Alexander Tarasov of the Ganelin trio fame also in a UK based group with Mark Sanders and Joe Williamson of Trapist. He has toured in the exciting group Zemlya with Eyvind Kang and Dylan Van Der Schyff and also with Dylan and Wayne Horvitz. In conjunction with Alliance Francaise he performed in a trio with Henri Texier and Aldo Romano. He also played in a trio with Jon Christensen and Terje Gewelt He has played in Poland with drummer Michal Miskiewicz and Tomasz Szukalski and with the Oles brothers Bartlomiej and Marcin. He has also played with the Aka Moon rhythm section of Michel Hadzigeorgiu and Stephane Galland. He has also colloborated in trio with Stefan Pasborg and Peter Friis Nielsen as well as working with other Danes Jacob Anderskov and in duo with Kresten Osgood.


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173
Album Review

Mark O'Leary / Peter Friis-Nielsen / Stefan Pasborg: Stoj

Read "Stoj" reviewed by Mark Corroto


In the aptly named Guerilla Series, for Ayler Records, this trio does, indeed, fight a “little war," recording this limited release (400 copies) as a hit-and-run ambush of destruction and noise. Støj is quite surprising for O'Leary, whose previous outings found him detailing more muted sounds with the likes of Supersilent on St. Fin Barre's (Leo, 2009), Tomasz Stanko on Levitation (Leo, 2005), and Cuong Vu on Waiting (Leo, 2007). Here, the Irish guitarist teams with the ...

210
Album Review

Mark O'Leary / Matthew Shipp: Labyrinth

Read "Labyrinth" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Like impressionist painters, guitarist Mark O'Leary and pianist Matthew Shipp execute a colorific sequence of abstracts, consisting of semi-structured theme-building developments and free-form dialogues. With blitzing firepower, the duo also fuses nuance and temperance into the big picture. They dish out linear, micro-motifs amid subtle shadings, and fragmented exchanges, but O'Leary ups the ante during several movements via his dark-toned, breakneck single note licks.

Shipp's flickering progressions and rhythmically inclined block chords offer a fertile underpinning throughout. They ...

883
In the Artist's Own Words

Mark O'Leary: Plucking the Flower

Read "Mark O'Leary: Plucking the Flower" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni


Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary emerged on the global improvised music scene in the last few years, pushing his bold vision and broad scope of musicality through constantly-changing collaborations. O'Leary can cross easily between genres, from progressive, synth-laden rock and seventies fusion to free jazz and abstract soundscapes.The guitarist's encyclopedic interests and remarkable prolificacy are amongst the many subjects he covers in this latest installment of In The Artist's Own Words. Beginning and Formative Influences Mark O'Leary: ...

373
Album Review

Mark O'Leary & Sunny Murray: Ode To Albert Ayler

Read "Ode To Albert Ayler" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


The digital download-only Ode To Albert Ayler captures gifted Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary improvising with free-jazz and former Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor drummer Sunny Murray during a 2002 studio session. Here, O'Leary delves into free-form jazz shaded music at the onset of his recording career, prior to his extensive recording projects for Leo Records and other European record labels.

O'Leary gels into various frenzies amid Murray's textural drumming, where the artists perform within the spirit ...

255
Album Review

Mark O'Leary: St Fin Barre's

Read "St Fin Barre's" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


This trio outing, recorded live with no rehearsals at St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork City, Ireland, would signify a new chapter in Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary's rapidly expanding discography. However, the session took place in 2002 featuring Norwegian keyboardist Stale Storlokken performing on church organ and drummer/percussionist Stein Inge Braekhus. On a side note, the session offers an absolute contrast to the guitarist's striking, free-jazz/fusion 2008 FMR release with Storlokken and drummer John Herndon, Ellipse.

The cathedral acts ...

411
Album Review

Mark O'Leary / Kenny Wollensen / Jamie Saft: The Synth Show

Read "The Synth Show" reviewed by Kurt Gottschalk


Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary has built a nice relationship with Leo Records over the last few years, having recorded for the label with Mat Maneri, Matthew Shipp, Eyvind Kang, Uri Caine, Steve Swallow and others. O'Leary seems to favor the trio setting and enjoys throwing himself into new contexts. His ninth Leo release, The Synth Show, with Kenny Wollesen on percussion and Jamie Saft on synthesizer, may be his most surprising outing yet. Saft and Wollesen are ...

309
Multiple Reviews

Mark O'Leary: Flux and Shamanic Voices

Read "Mark O'Leary: Flux and Shamanic Voices" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni


These two releases by the exceptional Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary feature him at his best. On two undated sessions, O'Leary paired himself with singular yet highly collaborative musicians. The meetings which followed recalibrated O'Leary's playing away from its usual avant-fusion inclination and towards a new form of freer expressive articulation. Mark O'Leary/Dylan Van Der Schyff/Wayne Horvitz Flux FMR 2007

O'Leary has recorded before with pianists--on Chamber Trio with Matthew Shipp and on ...

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263

Website

Irish Guitarist Mark O'Leary, In His Own Words, at AAJ

Irish Guitarist Mark O'Leary, In His Own Words, at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary emerged on the global improvised music scene in the last few years, pushing his bold vision and broad scope of musicality through constantly-changing collaborations. O'Leary can cross easily between genres, from progressive, synth-laden rock and seventies fusion to free jazz and abstract soundscapes.

The guitarist's encyclopedic interests and remarkable prolificacy are amongst the many subjects he covers in this latest installment of AAJ's column, In The Artist's Own Words, organized by AAJ contributor Eyal Hareuveni.

Check ...

118

Recording

Mark O'Leary "Ellipses" on FMR Records

Mark O'Leary "Ellipses" on FMR Records

Source: All About Jazz

Mark O'Leary Trio - Ellipses (FMR 254; UK) Featuring Mark O'Leary on guitar & electronics, Stale Storlokken on synth & samples and John Herndon on drums. Considering that Irish daredevil guitar wiz, Mark O'Leary's career is not yet a decade old, he has already unleashed more than a dozen discs as a leader on various labels like Leo, FMR & Clean Feed. Each one of his dozen+ discs features a different trio or duo from around the world an each ...

For some time now, O'Leary has seemed likely to deliver a great album; here it is. John Eyles BBC website review Waiting O'Leary is a superb acoustic player, as the opening track demonstrates,Waiting rvw John Fordham Both O'Leary and Caine are highly sophisticated performers drawing on both jazz and contemporary-classical materials.There are tunes that duck and dive like Morricone themes for thrillers,Frisell like drifters,even unexpectedly lyrical guitar-ballad ruminations. O'Leary is a gathering force Closure rvw John Fordham, The Guardian Each note glows like a glowing and wheeling like a firefly in the night sky, O'Leary achieves a fine tension between the mellifluous and the abstract

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Støj

W.E.R.F.
2011

buy

Waves III

W.E.R.F.
2011

buy

Project Apollo

W.E.R.F.
2011

buy

Stoj

Ayler Records
2011

buy

Snow

W.E.R.F.
2010

buy

Waves

From: Waves III
By Mark O'Leary

Theme From Waiting

From: Live In Istanbul
By Mark O'Leary

Obsession

From: Snow
By Mark O'Leary

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