Kent Kessler


Kent Kessler is an American jazz double-bassist.

Career

Although born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Kessler grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He began playing trombone at age ten. When he was thirteen, he moved with his family to Chicago and a few years later became interested in jazz. While attending St. Mary Center for Learning High School, he took lessons in bass guitar and jazz theory from Kestutis Stanciauskas.
In 1977 he formed Neutrino Orchestra with percussionist Michael Zerang and guitarists Dan Scanlan and Norbert Funk. He spent three months in Brazil during 1980–81 and intermittently attended Roosevelt University in Chicago. He and Michael Zerang also formed a group called Musica Menta, which played routinely at Link's Hall.
Kessler began playing double bass in the 1980s. It became his primary instrument in 1985 when he was asked to join the NRG Ensemble, which toured Europe and recorded for ECM under the leadership of Hal Russell until his death in 1992. In 1991 he worked with Zerang and guitarist ; in need of a hornist, they called Ken Vandermark, who had been considering leaving Chicago. Kessler and Vandermark worked together in the Vandermark 5, the DKV Trio, and the Steelwool Trio.
In the 1990s and afterwards he worked with Hamid Drake, Fred Anderson, and Joe McPhee and with Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Misha Mengelberg, and Luc Houtkamp. In 2003 Okka Disk released his solo album Bull Fiddle.
As of 2021, Kessler has occasionally accompanied Chicago country-music singer-songwriter Jane Baxter Miller, in performance and on record. In the 1990s, Baxter Miller, who is also Kent Kessler's wife, had performed and recorded with his sister Kelly Kessler, as the Texas Rubies country-music duo.

Discography

As leader

  • ''Bull Fiddle''

    As co-leader or sideman

With Boneshaker
  • Boneshaker
  • Unusual Words
  • Thinking Out Loud
  • Fake Music
With Peter Brötzmann
  • The Chicago Octet/Tentet
  • Live at the Empty Bottle
  • Stone/Water
  • Broken English
  • Short Visit to Nowhere
  • Tales Out of Time
  • Signs
  • Images
  • Be Music Night
  • Guts
  • American Landscapes 1
  • American Landscapes 2
  • At Molde 2007
  • 3 Nights in Oslo
  • Walk, Love, Sleep
With DKV Trio
  • Baraka
  • DKV Live
  • Live in Wels & Chicago 1998
  • Trigonometry
  • Double or Nothing
  • Collider
  • Latitude 41.88
With NRG Ensemble
  • Calling All Mothers
  • This Is My House
  • Bejazzo Gets a Facelift
With Hal Russell
  • The Finnish/Swiss Tour
  • The Hal Russell Story
  • Hal on Earth
With Territory Band
  • Transatlantic Bridge
  • Atlas
  • Map Theory
  • Company Switch
  • New Horse for the White House
  • Collide
With Ken Vandermark
  • Big Head Eddie
  • Solid Action
  • Standards
  • Steelwool Trio : International Front
  • Utility Hitter
  • Steam: Realtime
  • Single Piece Flow
  • Target Or Flag
  • Simpatico
  • Straight Lines
  • Burn the Incline
  • Acoustic Machine
  • Airports for Light
  • Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise
  • The Color of Memory
  • A Discontinuous Line
  • Beat Reader
  • Collected Fiction
  • Annular Gift
  • The Horse Jumps and the Ship Is Gone
  • Impressions of PO Music
With others