Mark Dresser (b. 1952) is a virtuoso contrabass player who has performed and recorded with many of the luminaries of 'new' jazz composition and improvisation. For ten years he performed with the Anthony Braxton Quartet, as well as diverse groups led by Ray Anderson, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Gerry Hemingway, John Zorn, and others. He has made over sixty recordings.
He has received grants from New York Foundation for the Arts and Meet the Composer, He holds both B.A. and M.A. degrees in Music from U.C. San Diego where he studied contrabass with the seminal virtuoso of twentieth century performance practice, Maestro Bertram Turetzky. He was awarded a 1983 Fulbright Fellowship for advanced contrabass study with Maestro Franco Petracchi.
Dresser has been composing and performing solo contrabass and ensemble music professionally since 1972 throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. His own projects include Mark Dresser's "Force Green," and the Mark Dresser Trio, performing his music for the French Surrealist film masterpiece of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, "Un Chien Andalou" as well as the German expressionist silent film classic, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari".
Additional original solo bass music was composed for the New York Shakespeare Festival Production of HENRY VI. Collaborative projects include "The Double Trio" comprised of the "Arcado String Trio" and the Trio du Clarinettes.
He was commissioned by the Banliues Bleues Festival in Paris to premier Dresser's composition "Bosnia", later recorded on CD by the "Double Trio" as "Green Dolphy Street" on ENJA. A founding member of the Arcado String Trio, he also received a commission from WDR Radio of Cologne, Germany in 1991 to compose "For Not the Law," an extended work for string trio and orchestra. Released on CD by JMT, "For Three Strings and Orchestra," is the third of five CD's recorded by Arcado. In 1992, Dresser composed and performed "Armadillo," for Arcado and the WDR Big Band. In 1995, "The Banquet," a double concert for various flutes and contrabass with string quartet was written and commissioned by Swiss flute virtuoso Matthias Ziegler. "Invocation," on Knitting Factory Works is the most recent CD of Dresser's contrabass music.
