Mark Helias


Mark Helias is an American double bass player and composer born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
He started playing the double bass at the age of 20, and studied with Homer Mensch at Rutgers University from 1971 to 1974, then at Yale School of Music from 1974 to 1976. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School, and SIM.
Helias has performed with a wide variety of musicians, first and foremost with trombonist Ray Anderson, with whom he led the ironic 1980s avant-funk band Slickaphonics, and a trio with Gerry Hemingway on drums, formed in the late 1970s, later named BassDrumBone. Helias has also performed with members of Ornette Coleman's band, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Ed Blackwell, and with musicians affiliated with the AACM, such as Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams.
Since 1984 Mark Helias has released twelve recordings under his own name and further albums leading the archetypal improvising trio Open Loose since the late 1990s. The group comprises Helias on bass, first Ellery Eskelin, then Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Tom Rainey on drums.

Recognition/Awards

  • 2010 - American Composers Orchestra Reading Commission,
  • 2007 - Chamber Music America Grant for New Works,
  • 2006 - Distinguished Alumnus Award Livingston College,
  • 1991 - Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest Commission,
  • 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2000 - Arts International Travel Grant,
  • 1988, 1994 - NYFA Grant in Music Composition,
  • 1984, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1995 - NEA Grant in Jazz Performance,
  • 1981 - CAPS Grant in Music Composition,

    Discography

As leader

  • Music For Big Band
  • Roof Rights
  • Available Light
  • Fictionary
  • Loopin' the Cool
  • Attack the Future
  • Desert Blue
  • The Current Set
  • Split Image
With Open Loose
  • The Third Proposition
  • The Signal Maker
  • Explicit – Live at the Sunset
  • Strange Unison
  • Atomic Clock
  • Verbs of Will
  • New School Tony Malaby replaces Eskelin
  • Come Ahead Back... with Ellery Eskelin and Tom Rainey

    Collaborations

Duo with Jane Ira Bloom
  • Some Kind of Tomorrow
With Sophia Domancich and Andrew Cyrille
  • Courtepointe - Live at the Sunside
With Terrence McManus and Gerry Hemingway
  • Transcendental Numbers
With Michael Moore, Alex Maguire, and Han Bennink
  • White Widow
With Mark Dresser
  • The Marks Brothers
With Daniele D'Agaro and U.T. Gandhi
  • Gentle Ben
With Christy Doran, Bobby Previte, Gary Thomas
  • Corporate Art
With Slickaphonics
With Ray Anderson and Gerry Hemingway a.k.a. BassDrumBone
  • The Long Road - BassDrumBone with Jason Moran and Joe Lovano
  • The Other Parade
  • The Line Up
  • March of Dimes
  • Wooferlo first album as BassDrumBone
  • Cooked to Perfection
  • You Be
  • ''Oahspe''

    As sideman

With Ralph Alessi and Modular Theatre
  • Open Season
With Barry Altschul
  • Irina
  • Brahma
  • Somewhere Else
With Ray Anderson
  • Wishbone
  • Right Down Your Alley
With the Ed Blackwell Project
  • What It Is? Ed Blackwell Project Vol. 1
  • What It Be Like? Ed Blackwell Project Vol. 2
With Jane Ira Bloom
  • Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickenson
  • Early Americans
  • Wingwalker
  • Mental Weather
With Anthony Braxton
  • Six Compositions: Quartet
  • Quintet 1977
  • Quintet 1977 - 05.30
  • Trillium J
With Don Cherry
With Marilyn Crispell
  • Storyteller
With Franco D'Andrea
With Anthony Davis
  • Song for the Old World
With Benoît Delbecq Unit
  • Benoît Delbecq and Fred Hersch Double Trio - Fun House
  • Phonetics
With Paul Dunmall Sun Quartet
  • Ancient and Future Airs
With Marty Ehrlich
  • The Long View
  • Dark Woods Ensemble – Sojourn
  • Dark Woods Ensemble – Live Wood
  • Dark Woods Ensemble – Just Before the Dawn
With Ricardo Gallo's Tierra de Nadie
  • The Great Fine Line
With Dennis González NY Quartet
  • Dance of the Soothsayer's Tongue
  • NY Midnight Suite
With Jerome Harris
  • Algorithms
With Gerry Hemingway
  • The Whimbler
  • Outerbridge Crossing
  • Kwambe
With Peter Herborn
  • Traces of Trane
With David Lopato
  • Inside Outside
With Joe Lovano
  • Rush Hour
With Michael Moore
  • Bering
  • Chicoutimi
  • Home Game
With Simon Nabatov
With Operazone
  • The Redesign
With Jim Pepper
  • Comin' and Goin
With Bobby Previte
  • Music of the Moscow Circus
With Enrico Rava
  • Flat Fleet
With Dewey Redman
With Joe Rosenberg
  • Do What We Must Do
With Roswell Rudd and Heather Masse
With Samo Šalamon
  • Government Cheese
  • Two Hours
With Dave Schnitter'
  • ''Glowing''