Drew Gress

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Drew Gress
Drew Gress Unterfahrt 2010-10-15-002.jpg
Gress in 2010
Background information
Born (1959-11-20) November 20, 1959 (age 65)
Trenton, New Jersey
GenresJazz
OccupationMusician
InstrumentDouble bass
Years active1980s–present
Labels Enja
Website drewgress.com

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.

Contents

Biography

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]

Playing and composing style

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]

Discography

As leader

As sideman

With Kenny Werner

With John Abercrombie

With Tim Berne

With Uri Caine

With Joint Venture

With Yelena Eckemoff


With others

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kennedy, Gary W (2002). "Gress, Drew". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.J581700 . Retrieved 12 October 2020.{{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Drew Gress | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 2020-10-11.
  3. 1 2 Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 605. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.
  4. ↑ Fordham, John (November 29, 2002). "Drew Gress/ Tim Berne: Vortex, London". The Guardian. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  5. ↑ Fordham, John (17 October 2003). "Tim Berne's Science Friction, The Sublime And". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  6. ↑ Considine, J. D. (March 2018). "expEAR & Drew Gress: Vesper". DownBeat . Vol. 85, no. 3. p. 58.
  7. ↑ Brady, Shaun (October 2013). "Drew Gress: The Sky inside". DownBeat . Vol. 80, no. 10. p. 54.
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