Event
RAW JAZZ: Mark Dresser 7
Real Art Ways presents RAW JAZZ – A series of four free concerts in June, July and September.
Major support for RAW JAZZ comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.
Mark Dresser makes music in a vast variety of settings and contexts, but the prolific bassist always seeks to create space for the unpredictable play between form and freedom. On his 2016 album “Sedimental You,” he assembled an astonishingly creative cast that embraced the intuitive and emotionally charged nature of his improvisational imperative. He will bring this same ensemble to RAW on Saturday, September 9 to perform selections from the album.
Riveting and playful, Dresser’s compositions emerge out of an ever-shifting matrix of specific musical personalities and the often dismaying swirl of current events.
The Mark Dresser 7:
Nicole Mitchell-flutes
David Morales Boroff-violin
Marty Ehrlich-clarinets
Michael Dessen -trombone
Joshua White-piano
Jim Black – drums
Mark Dresser-bass & compositions
A prolific composer, Dresser’s developed many pieces for the Arcado String Trio, and Tambastics, while receiving numerous commissions and recording his original scores for several classic silent films, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He moved back to Southern California in 2004 to take a position as Professor of Music at UC San Diego. While he’s maintained creative relationships with many of his New York associates, the move west coincided with his renewed focus on solo bass performance. As well Dresser in 2013 recorded his first quintet CD in nearly two decades to international acclaim Nourishments (2013). (Clean Feed) marks his re-immersion as a bandleader.
Dresser tours and records with celebrated collective Trio M with pianist Myra Melford and drummer Matt Wilson. He performs solo bass recitals, and with his sonically inspired new-music trio featuring flutist Matthias Ziegler and Denman Maroney on hyperpiano. And he maintains a East and West Coast quintet dedicated to the Nourishments repertoire. His most recent project, a septet featuring Nicole Mitchell, Marty Ehrlich, Michael Dessen, Joshua White, David Morales Boroff, and Kjell Nordeson perform and record his new compositions to be released on Clean Feed.
Born in Los Angeles in 1952, Dresser has been a creative force since he first started gaining attention in the early ’70s with Stanley Crouch’s Black Music Infinity, a free jazz ensemble that included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, James Newton, and David Murray (at the same time he was performing with the San Diego Symphony). He earned a BA and MA from the UC San Diego studying contrabass with maestro Bertram Turetzky. Recruited by Anthony Braxton, Dresser made the move to New York in 1986 and spent a decade touring and recording extensively with the reed visionary’s celebrated quartet with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Gerry Hemingway. At the same time he became a ubiquitous force on the Downtown scene, working widely with masters such as Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, and John Zorn.
Dresser received both B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with the seminal contrabass soloist, Professor Bertram Turetzky. In 1983, he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Italy with Maestro Franco Petracchi. He has been awarded two New York Foundation for the Arts grants, Meet the Composer commissions, and fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Civitella Ranieri, Bellagio, and Akrai. He is on the board of the International Society of Bassists, the International Society of Improvised Music, and the advisory board of the Deep Listening Institute, and the new music ensemble, NOISE. He has been a lecturer at Princeton University, faculty at the New School University, and Hampshire College. In fall of 2004, Dresser joined the faculty of University of California, San Diego.
