Tim Berne


Tim Berne is an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and record label owner. His primary instruments are the alto and baritone saxophones.

Biography

Berne was born in Syracuse, New York, United States. He has said that he had no interest in playing an instrument until he attended Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. Hearing the album Dogon A.D. by Julius Hemphill turned his attention toward jazz. He was a fan of rhythm and blues, and it seemed to him that Hemphill was playing jazz with the soulfulness of R&B. In 1974, he went to New York to find Hemphill, who gave him saxophone lessons and advice on how to manage his career. Berne started the record label Empire Productions in 1979.
For Empire, he recorded four albums with avant-garde jazz musicians such as John Carter, Alex Cline, Nels Cline, Olu Dara, Vinny Golia, Paul Motian, and Ed Schuller. His next two albums appeared on Soul Note in the early 1980s. In these sessions he worked with Motian, Schuller, Ray Anderson, Herb Robertson and others. He then got a contract with Columbia and recorded with Robertson, Hank Roberts, Bill Frisell and others. During this time he also recorded a duo album with Frisell and two albums with John Zorn. After two albums with Columbia, he signed with JMT, a label known for avant-garde jazz.
In the 1990s, he recorded in the trio, Miniature, with Roberts and Joey Baron, and in the band Caos Totale with Django Bates, Mark Dresser, Marc Ducret, Steve Swell, and Bobby Previte. He led a trio with Michael Formanek and Jim Black, then added Chris Speed to form the quartet Bloodcount. PolyGram bought JMT and closed it. This motivated Berne to start Screwgun Records as the outlet for his albums.
Screwgun's first release was a 3-disc set by Bloodcount called Unwound, the music of which exemplified Berne's characteristic style of "explod the walls of traditional compositional form: instead of adhering to anything remotely resembling theme and variations, he intersperses thematic material–sometimes repeated, elongated, or truncated–with the careening pleasures of free improvisation." During the late 1990s he continued to perform with Bloodcount, formed Paraphrase, a trio with Drew Gress and Tom Rainey, and Big Satan, a trio with Ducret and Rainey.
In the early 2000s, Berne formed several groups, including the trio Hard Cell with Rainey and Craig Taborn, and the quartet Science Friction. He also collaborated with members of The Bad Plus for the project Buffalo Collision, with Nels Cline of Wilco for the critically acclaimed album The Veil in 2011, and with David Torn on several projects and recordings.
Berne formed the band Snakeoil with Matt Mitchell, Oscar Noriega, and Ches Smith, which released a self-titled album in 2012, and six more recordings, with slight personnel changes, over the next decade. During this time, he has also recorded with members of The Bad Plus as Broken Shadows, and in duos with several musicians. In 2023 he released Oceans And with Hank Roberts and Aurora Nealand.
In the late 2010s albums by other musicians interpreting Berne's music have begun to appear. These include Førage by Matt Mitchell, Koi by Gregg Belisle-Chi, Palm Sweat by Marc Ducret, and Oddly Enough by Gordon Grdina.

Groups

  • BBC Trio
  • Big Satan
  • Bloodcount
  • Broken Shadows
  • Buffalo Collision
  • Caos Totale
  • Capotosta
  • Hard Cell
  • Miniature
  • Paraphrase
  • Science Friction
  • Snakeoil

    Discography

As leader/co-leader

  • 1979 The Five Year Plan
  • 1980 7X
  • 1981 Spectres
  • 1982 Songs and Rituals in Real Time
  • 1983 The Ancestors
  • 1984 Mutant Variations
  • 1987 Fulton Street Maul
  • 1988 Sanctified Dreams
  • 1989 Tim Berne's Fractured Fairy Tales
  • 1993 Diminutive Mysteries
  • 1999 The Empire Box
  • 2011 Insomnia
  • 2017 My First Tour - Live In Brussels
  • 2020 Sacred Vowels
  • 2020 Adobe Probe
  • 2022 Decay
With ARTE Quartet
  • 2002 The Sevens
With BB&C
  • 2011 The Veil
With Gregg Belisle-Chi
  • 2022 Mars
  • 2022 Zone One
With Gregg Belisle-Chi and Tom Rainey
  • 2025 Yikes Too
With Big Satan
  • 1997 Big Satan
  • 2004 Souls Saved Hear
  • 2006 Livein Cognito
With Bloodcount
  • 1995 Lowlife: The Paris Concert
  • 1995 Poisoned Minds: The Paris Concert
  • 1995 Memory Select: The Paris Concert
  • 1996 Unwound
  • 1997 Discretion
  • 1997 Saturation Point
  • 2007 Seconds
  • 2021 Attention Spam
  • 2021 5
With Broken Shadows
  • 2019 Broken Shadows
  • 2020 Broken Shadows Live
With Buffalo Collision
  • 2008 Duck
With Caos Totale
  • 1990 Pace Yourself
  • 1994 Nice View
With Bruno Chevillon
  • 2011 Old and Unwise
With Marilyn Crispell
  • 1995 Inference
With Michael Formanek
  • 1993 Loose Cannon
  • 1998 Ornery People
  • 2024 Parlour Games
With Bill Frisell
  • 1984 Theoretically
  • 2024 Live In Someplace Nice
With Hardcell
  • 2001 The Shell Game
  • 2004 Electric and Acoustic Hard Cell Live
  • 2005 Feign
  • 2020 The Cosmos
  • 2021 Sensitive
With Mark Helias
  • 2020 Blood From A Stone
  • 2025 Medium Cool
With Masayo Koketsu and Nava Dunkelman
  • 2025 Poiēsis
With Miniature
  • 1988 Miniature
  • 1991 I Can't Put My Finger on It
With Matt Mitchell
  • 2018 Angel Dusk
  • 2020 1
  • 2020 Spiders
  • 2022 One More, Please
With Aurora Nealand and Hank Roberts
  • 2023 Oceans And
  • 2024 Lucid/Still
With Aurora Nealand and Mark Helias
  • 2024 Live At The 188 Club
With Paraphrase
  • 1997 Visitation Rites
  • 1999 Please Advise
  • 2005 Pre-Emptive Denial
With Hank Roberts
  • 1998 Cause & Reflect
With Herb Robertson, Marc Ducret and the Copenhagen Art Ensemble
  • 2001 Open, Coma
With Science Friction
  • 2002 Science Friction
  • 2003 The Sublime And
  • 2007 Mind Over Friction
  • 2020 Science Friction +size
  • 2024 No Tamales On Wednesday
With Snakeoil
  • 2012 Snakeoil
  • 2013 Shadow Man
  • 2015 You've Been Watching Me
  • 2015 Spare
  • 2017 Incidentals
  • 2020 The Fantastic Mrs. 10
  • 2020 The Deceptive 4
  • 2025 Snakeoil OK
  • 2025 In Lieu Of
With David Torn, Trevor Dunn, and Tom Rainey as Disco Tent
  • 2024 Ravens Low & Ready 2
With David Torn and Ches Smith as Sun of Goldfinger
  • 2019 Sun of Goldfinger
  • 2020 Congratulations To You
  • 2022 Ozmir
  • 2023 Mystic with Aurora Nealand as The Sunny Four
  • 2024 Candid with Devin Hoff and Marc Ducret as Sunny Five
With Nasheet Waits
  • 2020 The Coandă Effect
  • 2022 ''Tangled''

    Albums Featuring Music by Tim Berne

  • Matt Mitchell - Førage
  • Gregg Belisle-Chi - Koi
  • Gordon Grdina - Oddly Enough
  • Marc Ducret - Palm Sweat
  • Gregg Belisle-Chi - ''Slow Crawl''

    As sideman

With Ray Anderson
  • Big Band Record
With Nels Cline
  • Angelica
With Marc Ducret
  • Tower Vol. 2
  • Tower Bridge
With Enten Eller
  • Melquiades
  • Auto da Fe
With Umberto Petrin
  • Ellessi
With Jazzophone Compagnie
  • Mosaiques
With Simon Fell
  • Positions & Descriptions
With Figure 8
  • Pipe Dreams
With Michael Formanek
  • Extended Animation
  • Low Profile
  • Nature of the Beast
  • The Rub and Spare Change
  • Small Places
  • The Distance
  • Even Better
  • Pre-Apocalyptic
With Vinny Golia
  • Compositions for Large Ensemble
  • Facts of Their Own Lives
With Drew Gress
With Mark Helias
  • Split Image
  • The Current Set
With Julius Hemphill
  • Five Chord Stud
  • One Atmosphere
With Ingrid Laubrock
  • Ubatuba
With Mr. Rencore
  • Intollerant
With Ivo Perelman
  • ivo
With Hank Roberts
  • Black Pastels
With Herb Robertson
With Samo Salamon & Tom Rainey
  • Duality
With George Schuller
  • Hellbent
With Ches Smith
  • Hammered
  • International Hoohah
With Spring Heel Jack
  • Masses
With Chloe Sobek
  • Burning Up
With David Torn, Craig Taborn, and Tom Rainey
  • Prezens
  • Slipped on a Bar
  • xFORM
With Stefan Winter
  • The Little Trumpet
With Yōsuke Yamashita
  • Ways of Time
With John Zorn