Drew Gress | |
|---|---|
 Gress in 2010 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | November 20, 1959 Trenton, New Jersey |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instrument(s) | Double bass |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
| Labels | Enja |
| Website | drewgress |
Drew Gress (born November 20, 1959) is an American jazz double-bassist and composer born in Trenton, New Jersey and raised in the Philadelphia area.
Gress studied at Towson State University and Manhattan School of Music. [1] In the late 1980s he worked with Phil Haynes, recording several albums with the group Joint Venture. [1]
In 1998, he released his first album as leader, Heyday, with his band Jagged Sky (featuring David Binney, Ben Monder, and Kenny Wollesen). [2] Gress wrote all except two of the compositions. [3] Two years later, he recorded Spin & Drift, on which he also played steel guitar. He recorded material for two further albums – 7 Black Butterflies and The Irrational Numbers – in 2004. [3]
Gress has taught at Peabody Conservatory and Western Connecticut State University. He has also served tenures as artist in residence at University of Colorado-Boulder and at Russia's St. Petersburg Conservatory. [1] [2]
Gress has toured Europe, Asia, and South America. [2] Those with whom he has and continues to work include Tim Berne, [4] Uri Caine, Fred Hersch, Don Byron, Dave Douglas, and Erik Friedlander. [2]
Critic John Fordham described a performance by Gress's group as "one of the great jazz performances in Britain in 2002". [5] In 2004, the UK's BBC Radio and London's Guardian selected his quartet's live radio broadcast as Jazz Concert of the Year.[ citation needed ]
Composition awards include an NEA grant (1990), [2] funding from Meet the Composer (2003). [2]
The DownBeat reviewer of Vesper, a collaboration between Gress and the trio expEAR, wrote that the bassist "has exquisite time and a composer's sense of line, a combination that allows him an insightful level of counterpoint in his playing". [6] The DownBeat reviewer of Gress's The Sky inside wrote that he "favors a focused restraint, a sort of concentrated tension that wrings the maximum inspiration from minimal elements, and which maintains a taut severity even when spare free passages burst into angular swing". [7]
With John Abercrombie
With Tim Berne
With Uri Caine
With Joint Venture
With Yelena Eckemoff
With others
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