Artist Info

Mark Helias
Bassist/composer Mark Helias is seen regularly at venues in New York City ranging from The 55 Bar to Carnegie Hall. After his studies with Homer Mensch at Rutgers University and Yale School of Music, he embarked on an international performance career with the Anthony Braxton quartet in 1977. Since then he has enjoyed long musical associations with Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Ray Anderson, Don Cherry and Gerry Hemingway.
Ten albums of his music have been released since 1984, including S
plit Image, The Current Set (1987), Desert Blue (1989), Attack The Future (1992), Loopin' the Cool (1995), Fictionary (1998), Come Ahead Back (1998) New School (2001). Verbs of Will (2004), and the newly released, Atomic Clock (2006).
A prolific composer, Helias has composed music for two feature films as well as chamber pieces and works for large ensemble and big band. He has been producing recordings for other artists on the Gramavision, Enja, New World, Sound Aspects, and Avant/DIW labels.
His trio, Open Loose with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey, has become an archetypal improvising ensemble on the New York scene. Mr. Helias performs solo bass concerts and can also be heard in the innovative bass duo, "The Marks Brothers" , with fellow bassist Mark Dresser. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School and SIM (School for Improvised Music) and is committed to broadening the scope of musical education.
Mark Dresser

Mark Dresser (b. 1952) has been composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music professionally since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Emerging from the L.A. "free" jazz scene of the early 70's, Dresser performed with the "Black Music Infinity", led by Stanley Crouch, and included Bobby Bradford, Arthur Blythe, David Murray, and James Newton. Concurrently he was performing with the San Diego Symphony. ?After completing B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCSD where he studied with contrabass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky and a 1983 Fulbright Fellowship in Italy with maestro Franco Petracchi, Dresser relocated to New York in 1986 after being invited to join the quartet of composer/saxophonist, Anthony Braxton. Dresser played with Braxton's longest performing quartet for nine years.
?Once in NY, Dresser began working with a wide variety of musicians in the greater New York community including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Anthony Davis, Fred Frith, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, and others. He focused on composing for a pair of cooperative groups, Tambastics with flutist Robert Dick, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, and pianist Denman Maroney and the string trio, ARCADO, with violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Hank Roberts. Numerous European tours, awards, six CD's, and several commissions resulted, including "For Not the Law," a composition for ARCADO and orchestra from WDR Radio of Cologne Germany, "Armadillo" for ARCADO and the WDR Big Band, and "Bosnia," a work written for the Trio du Clarinettes of France and ARCADO.
?His current collaborative projects include the trio, C/D/E, master drummer Andrew Cyrille and with multi-reed player virtuoso, Marty Ehrlich, a duo, trio and quartet with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney, the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Helias, a duo with the cello virtuoso, Frances-Marie Uitti , a duo with the gifted drummer Susie Ibarra, and a duo with celebrated trombonist, Ray Anderson, .
?Since 1999, Mark Dresser's trio includes flutist Matthias Ziegler and pianist Denman Maroney. Their electroacoustic performance inspired video artist, Tom Leeser to create two video works, Subtonium and Sonomatopoeia which the trio performs live in performance in addition to “Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper” a solo bass collaboration with animator, Sarah Jane Lapp.
?Mark Dresser's Modular Ensemble performs his chamber works. Earlier projects include the mixed quintet, Force Green featuring Dave Douglas on trumpet, Theo Bleckmann on voice, Denman Maron