MUSIC

Nameless Sound presents Mark Dresser (San Diego)- double bass, 8pm Monday, November 22 at labotanica, 2316 Elgin.

In the 1980’s, Mark Dresser became well known in the world of Creative Music as bass player for what many consider Anthony Braxton’s greatest quartet. Dresser brought everything that was needed to that demanding situation: virtuosity, intensity, creativity, a wide palette of sounds and extended techniques, and an ability to interpret composition as well as improvise. Since that time, Dresser has not only come to be one of the most important bassists in the music. He’s acknowledged as one of the music’s masters, beyond the category of instrument.

Dresser’s wide-ranging skills were forged during his early years in Southern California. In the early 1970’s, he was not only playing in the San Diego Symphony, he was also performing with the top names of Avant-Garde jazz in Los Angeles: David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Bobby Bradford, James Newton and others. He studied under the world-renown new-music bass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky. After studying in Italy on a Fulbright scholarship, Dresser relocated to New York City to join Braxton’s ensemble (which played together for nine years).

Mark Dresser’s projects range widely from free improvisation ensembles, solo bass pieces (composed by himself, others, and freely improvised) notated works for chamber ensembles and orchestra, music for film (improvised and notated), and music for theater.

Dresser has worked with a long list of some of the most important artists in Creative Music, including: Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Davis, Fred Frith, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Robert Dick, Gerry Hemmingway, Denman Maroney, Mark Feldman, Hank Roberts, Andrew Cyrille, Marty Ehrlich, Tom Cora Marilyn Crispell, Diamanda Galas, Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Sonny Simmons, Henry Threadgill and many more.

He was nominated for a Grammy for his performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s CD Yiddishbbuk (EMI).

Mark Dresser has written important texts on bass technique, specifically extended techniques, and has lectured and taught several major universities and conservatories. He is currently professor of music at University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Dresser has a heroic sound and his double-, triple-, and quadruple-stopped glisses are stunning. … He should sustain his position as one of the few virtuosos of so-called avant-garde jazz.” - Village Voice

“Mark Dresser is an inventor. He also may be the most important bassist to emerge since 1980 in jazz or classical music.”
- Boston Herald

“Mr. Dresser, a bassist who is one of the great instrumental forces in recent American jazz outside of the mainstream … “
- New York Times

“He has proven to be one of the master bassists of modern jazz, perhaps even the most exciting … his improvisational fecundity was remarkable for its veritable ensemble-in-miniature, in which every orchestral maneuver can be deployed to advantage… Dresser’s rhythmic mooring, melodic liquidity, and timbral hues showed how sanguinely he absorbs and adapts available contexts, emotionally and generically. The almost palpable physicality of his pizzicato slaps and pedal plunging, the luxuriant tremolos of his arco passages and refrains, were as identifiable as the calling cues we associate with elder bass paragons.” - San Diego Reader

For more information:
http://www.mark-dresser.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dresser