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Billy Mohler

Billy Mohler is an exploratory jazz bassist who has also amassed wide-ranging credits in the pop world as a GRAMMY-nominated writer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and session player, working with Dolly Parton, Macy Gray, Lady Gaga, Nile Rogers, Sia, Awolnation, Mavis Staples, Kelly Clarkson, Steven Tyler, Jon Brion and a host of others.

A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Mohler attended the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as one of only five students, studying with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and other luminaries. His 2019 debut Focus, hailed by Nextbop.com as “an incredibly free, unconstrained and inventive record filled with exciting twists and turns and constant detours,” marked the auspicious start of his quartet featuring tenor saxophonist Chris Speed and Kneebody members Shane Endsley (trumpet) and Mohler’s childhood friend Nate Wood (drums). The group has followed up with its 2022 sophomore release Anatomy, a sonically inventive effort that highlights the players’ loose, raw, indeterminate chemistry as well as Mohler’s rough-hewn, insistently rhythmic compositions.

Speed and Mohler also play together in the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex, led by The Smashing Pumpkins drummer, as well as Black Friday TRiO, with a self-titled 2019 release. Collaborators with the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex include Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Rob Dickenson (Catherine Wheel) and the Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley (Mohler’s godfather). An avid skateboarder, Mohler served as musical director for Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam tour, leading a five-piece band on an arena tour and orchestrating the music for Hawk’s extreme sports show.

Mohler’s other recording, writing, production and engineering credits include Allison Krauss, Pat Benatar, Miranda Lambert, Elle King, The Airbourne Toxic Event, Samantha Ronson, Kelly Clarkson, Lenka and Liz Phair. In addition, Mohler has composed for national commercials and campaigns including Sworavski, Finlandia Vodka and CSX Trains. In every situation, Mohler finds a way to forge something complete, in a category of its own.

Awards

Grammy Nomination 2011


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6
Liner Notes

Rachel Eckroth: Humanoid

Read "Rachel Eckroth: Humanoid" reviewed by Sharonne Cohen


"Humanoid is a departure for me," Rachel Eckroth said when we spoke about her new piano quartet album, recorded at Sam First jazz club in Los Angeles on October 28 and 29, 2022. Taking her first piano lesson at the age of five, this accomplished, multifaceted musician has honed her craft over the four decades since, becoming not only a gifted and versatile pianist and keyboardist, but a vocalist and songwriter. Engaged in creative projects spanning jazz, indie and pop, ...

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Album Review

Rachel Eckroth: Humanoid

Read "Humanoid" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Pianist Rachel Eckroth may use wellness or New agey terms such as polymath or bold vision to describe her approach to her considerable art, but she gets down to Earth for real and very quickly on Humanoid, her first all-acoustic recording. Recorded live at Sam's First in Los Angeles, Eckroth's very active imagination spearheads a group, including bassist and all round jazz entrepreneur Billy Mohler, drummer Tina Raymond--whose uncanny sense for everything a drummer can do, can be ...

5
Album Review

Dan Rosenboom: Polarity

Read "Polarity" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


On this album, trumpeter Dan Rosenboom and his quartet engage in a free-wheeling session which comes off as a modern update of Wayne Shorter releases such as The All-Seeing Eye (Blue Note, 1966). He engages in playful genre-crossing and experimentation here which incorporate the sensibilities of hip-hop and ambient music as well as modern jazz. The album's key track is the marathon opener, “The Age of Snakes" in which Rosenboom's trumpet and Gavin Templeton's alto saxophone lazily float ...

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Album Review

Alex Sadnik: Flight

Read "Flight" reviewed by Jeff Schwartz


What is new to say through Charlie Parker's music? On Flight Alex Sadnik looks for answers with two different bands. On the first side of the LP, his alto fronts a quintet with violin, pedal steel guitar, bass,and drums, but this is not a Bob Wills or Bill Frisell pastiche. The opening track, “Donna Lee," stretches and compresses Parker's speedy contrafact of “Indiana" into a medium waltz. Both Sadnik's alto tone and the metric liberties taken with ...

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Album Review

Dan Rosenboom: Polarity

Read "Polarity" reviewed by Pat Youngspiel


Recently, Los Angeles-based trumpeter Dan Rosenboom has been experimenting with somewhat freer and edgier realms of improvisation, giving doomy metal influences a go on Trio Subliminal 2 (Orenda Records, 2022), and indulging high-energy trio interplay with plenty of delay effects and other sonic manipulation on Refraction (Orenda Records, 2021). Not to mention the opulent The Complete Boom Sessions (Orenda Records, 2022), which captured over 400-minutes, live to tape, recorded over five gigs at one of Los Angeles' premiere hubs for ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Billy Mohler, Bill Frisell, Jeong Lim Yang, Ken Stubbs & More New Releases

Read "Billy Mohler, Bill Frisell, Jeong Lim Yang, Ken Stubbs & More New Releases" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Bands of improvisational genius, two takes on early Bill Frisell compositions, an album revisiting the legacy of First House, two productions by the David Breskin / Ron St. Germain dream team, and much more in this edition of Mondo Jazz. Happy listening! PlaylistBen Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Billy Mohler “Fight Song" Anatomy (Contagious Music) 0:16 Host talks 4:07 Dan Weiss “For Tim Smith" Dedication (Cygnus) 5:43 Host talks 11:18 ...

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Album Review

Billy Mohler: Anatomy

Read "Anatomy" reviewed by John Chacona


Can we please retire the old cliché about jazz from jny: Los Angeles being limp, wan and bland? One listen to pianist Cameron Graves' slamming metal-jazz or to the jittery complexity of David Binney's recent releases should be enough to torch that outdated canard. Now comes bassist Billy Mohler with Anatomy, 43 minutes of amped-up, torqued-out energy that pulses with the elevated heart-rate of first-wave punk rock. That's no accident. Mohler is a pop music pro, a Grammy ...

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“Los Angeles session bassist Mohler has finally gotten around releasing his debut jazz album, and it’s a stunner.” Jazziz “Focus is a testament to Mohler’s passion for jazz and features a stellar cast at the peak of their prime. Mohler’s bass is constantly at the forefront pushing and propelling the quartet in what amounts to an incredibly free, unconstrained and inventive record filled with exciting twists and turns and constant detours. All in all, Focus represents a solid debut for someone who temporarily shied away from his jazz roots and leaves us wondering what mark he would have left on the music had he never left.” NextBop “Great part of the pleasure of this disc stems from the way how grooves and melodies dance together

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Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Flight

Big Ego
2024

buy

Polarity

Orenda Records
2023

buy

Humanoid

Sam First Records
2023

buy

Anatomy

Contagious Music
2022

buy

Points on an Infinite...

Orenda Records
2020

buy

Forest Standards Vol....

BIG EGO Records
2020

buy

Strange Meeting

From: Humanoid
By Billy Mohler

Videos

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