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Tom Abbs

Multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker Tom Abbs has been performing and recording in a variety of contexts (classical, rock, jazz, and improvised musics) since age eleven. Tom started his musical training at the age of seven playing piano. A couple of years later he changed his instrument to cello and by the time he was eleven he was playing the bass. He was handed a tuba in seventh grade and his conquest of the "low end" began. Tom went on in his teens to win accolades in state and national competitions for his work as a soloist and ensemble player.

He came to New York in 1991 to attend the New School’s Jazz and Contemporary Music program where he studied with such masters as Reggie Workman, Buster Williams, Joe Chambers, Brian Smith, Junior Mance, Arnie lawrence, Chico Hamilton and Arthur Taylor. By the end of his third semester at the New School Tom was playing gigs every night of the week and made the decision to leave school and concentrate on performing. He has been working steadily ever since. In the past decade Tom has developed a driving percussive style on the bass that encompasses the deep emotion and grit of Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison while showing the dexterity and inventiveness of Scott La Faro. His fluid tuba style has shed many of the instrument’s sluggish connotations and transformed it into a soaring solo and sharply percussive groove machine. Equally comfortable in "free" and "inside" settings, Abbs' versatility and depth as a player has kept him busy backing up the likes of Lawrence "Butch" Morris, Charles Gayle, Daniel Carter, Cooper-Moore, Steve Swell, Roy Campbell Jr., Sabir Mateen, Ori Kaplan, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tahar, Borah Bergman, Billy Bang, Andrew Lamb, Warren Smith and many others. Tom is currently a member of the collective groups, Triptych Myth, Yugnaut and Transmitting. He leads the band Frequency Response and tours with his solo multi-media project Multifarious.

Tom is the founder and driving force behind the arts coalition Jump Arts, which since between 1997 and 2002 presented over 150 performances and educational workshops in New York City. Jump Arts is dedicated to creating viable opportunities for revolutionary artists of different generations, backgrounds, and experiences with a strong focus on emerging artists. Since 2002 Jump Arts has dedicated itself to artists services through physcal sponsorship and media services. Jump was voted "Best Arts Collective in New York City" in 2000 by The New York Press.

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211
Album Review

Tom Abbs & Frequency Response: Lost & Found

Read "Lost & Found" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


Tom Abbs is a multi-instrumentalist who, besides violin and didgeridoo, plays bass, tuba and cello on this CD. He has enlivened the free jazz scene in New York, not only through his collaborations with Cooper-Moore and Steve Swell among others, but with his music as well. He thinks with a vivid imagination and as such injects his compositions with melody, free falling notes, jazz harmony and a picturesque development. The last may well spring from his role as film-maker.

278
Album Review

Tom Abbs and Frequency Response: Lost + Found

Read "Lost + Found" reviewed by Lyn Horton


Rarely does a recording's clarity of purpose come through in one listening, but bassist Tom Abbs and Frequency Response's Lost + Found fits the bill. The significance of this record originates in the brevity of each of bassist Abbs' eighteen pieces--lasting, on average, only slightly over three minutes, with the longest being six and the shortest about two.

The key to plugging into this album is recognizing that the major concern is the expression of one musical concept after another. ...

379
Album Review

Tom Abbs: Lost & Found

Read "Lost & Found" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


It is possible to respond to Tom Abbs & Frequency Response's Lost & Found with eyes wide shut, ears completely unlocked and a body ready to leap up and dance to some of its eighteen randomly arranged musical fragments. There is a cerebral angle here, most likely deliberate on the part of the artist. It has to do with the arrangement of the fragments--the songs, that is. Some are inspired by visual images and intended to sound like aural depictions ...

143
Album Review

Tom Abbs & Frequency Response: Lost + Found

Read "Lost + Found" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Frequency Response's third outing is a study in diversity via a stylistic group sound that touches upon many genres. Cellist/tubaist Tom Abbs is the director of operations throughout a program that integrates chamber jazz, free jazz, and noise-shaping activities amid many other shades of Western song forms.

The group abides by a structured approach to the core compositional underpinnings, but partake in mini, cosmic meltdowns and bustling rhythmic metrics. It's a turbulent journey at times, where the majority ...

1,072
Interview

Tom Abbs: Combining Music and Film

Read "Tom Abbs: Combining Music and Film" reviewed by John Sharpe


Bassist, composer and film-maker Tom Abbs has enlivened not only the ensembles in which he has played, but also the New York City free jazz scene with his brand of musical activism, through the Jump Arts Foundation. An accomplished instrumentalist on tuba as well as bass, he has collaborated with downtown stalwarts Daniel Carter, Steve Swell, Cooper-Moore, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tsahar, Andrew Lamb and Warren Smith among many others.

He boasts a distinctive compositional conception manifest ...

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119

Interview

Bassist/Composer Tom Abbs Interviewed at AAJ

Bassist/Composer Tom Abbs Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Bassist, composer and film-maker Tom Abbs has enlivened not only the ensembles in which he has played, but also the New York City free jazz scene with his brand of musical activism, through the Jump Arts Foundation. An accomplished instrumentalist on tuba as well as bass, he has collaborated with downtown stalwarts Daniel Carter, Steve Swell, Cooper-Moore, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tsahar, Andrew Lamb and Warren Smith among many others.

He boasts a distinctive compositional conception manifest through his adventurous Frequency ...

143

Recording

New CD/DVD from Tom Abbs & Frequency Response Coming January 24th

New CD/DVD from Tom Abbs & Frequency Response Coming January 24th

Source: All About Jazz

AVON, CT -- 482 Music will kick off its 2006 release schedule on January 24th with Tom Abbs & Frequency Response's The Animated Adventures of Knox (482-1039), a two-disc set featuring a DVD movie and its CD soundtrack.

A combination of avant-jazz and avant-cinema, this project was produced, directed and edited by New York-based multi-instrumentalist/filmmaker Tom Abbs and is based on his narrative and video graphic score. This is Frequency Response's second release, and features Abbs, violinist Jean Cook, cellist ...

"The ubiquitous session man Tom Abbs is a true genre chameleon" - Syracuse FreeTimes

"Abbs is a force of nature on the bass and tuba" - Time Out NY

"The dynamic outbursts of bassist Tom Abbs careened off the walls in torrential waves of sound as he sparred with the band." - All About Jazz

"Abbs is exceptionally tasteful and supportive" - Peter Nargasak, Chicago Reader

"Tom's keen sense of improvisation propels you through a vast landscape of songs and sound. ...A must see!" - Mark Minsker, Free Times

"Whether bowing, slapping, strumming, or plucking, Abbs creates a field of energy that feeds the group" - Cadence Magazine

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Rhapsody in Black

GR2 Classics
2012

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Lost And Found

HighNote
2009

buy

Lost + Found

Engine Studios
2009

buy

Lost & Found

Engine Studios
2009

buy

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