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Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser, born in 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 Los Angeles avant-garde jazz
scene of the early ‘70s, Dresser performed with the Black Music Infinity.
Concurrently, he was performing with the San Diego Symphony. After completing
B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCSD and a Fulbright Fellowship in Italy, Dresser
relocated to New York in 1986, having been 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 an active career as a performer as well as focusing on composition, beginning with a pair of cooperative groups: Tambastics, and the string trio Arcado. Numerous European tours, awards, CDs and several commissions resulted from these two associations, including a composition for string trio and orchestra from WDR Radio of Cologne, a sextet for the Trio du Clarinettes of France and Arcado, and a Mary Cary Flagler recording grant.
In 1991, Dresser began composing for his own ensembles beginning with the quintet Force Green, as well as two trio scores for the classic silent films The Cabaret of Dr. Caligari and Un Chien Andalou. In 1995, Invocation, a CD of solo contrabass works was released.
Recent chamber works include a McKim Fund commission for violin and piano, a commission by American virtuoso tubist David LeClair, and a piece for Denman Maroney recorded on the 2000 Tzadik release Marinade. Also a commission by the Swiss flute virtuoso Matthias Ziegler entitled Banquet, and Loss of the Innocents, for clarinet, cello, and tuba, which were recorded on the 1997 Tzadik CD Banquet, and have been performed in festivals in Europe and the United States.
A chapter on his extended techniques for contrabass A personal Pedagogy appears in the book Arcana (Granary Books.) Other articles on the research appear in Downbeat, Musician Magazine, and Jazziz.
He has performed
and recorded over eighty CDs with some of the strongest personalities
in contemporary music and jazz including Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Jane
Ira Bloom, Bobby Bradford, Tom Cora, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Davis,
Dave Douglas, Fred Frith, Diamanda Galas, Vinny Golia, Earl Howard, Oliver
Lake, George Lewis, Msha Mengelberg, Ikue Mori, James Newton, Evan Parker,
Sonny Simmons, Louis Sclavis, Vladimir Tarasov, Henry Threadgill, and
John Zorn.
Mark Dresser’s current projects include the Modular Ensemble, the
Mark Dresser Trio and various quartets. He has given lecture demonstrations
at the Juilliard School, National Superior Conservatory of Paris, UCI,
UCSD, Brown University, Mills College, Cal Arts, and New England Conservatory
of Music.
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