Mark Helias


Mark Helias is an American jazz double bass player and composer born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
He started playing the double bass at the age of 20, graduating from Yale University's School of Music with a Masters degree in 1976. He has also studied at Rutgers University. 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, and continuing to play together. Helias has also performed with members of Ornette Colemans 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 six recordings under his own name and further six albums leading the archetypal improvising trio Open Loose since 1996. The group comprises Helias on bass, first Ellery Eskelin, then Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Tom Rainey on drums.

Recognition/Awards

As leader

With Open Loose
With Sophia Domancich and Andrew Cyrille
With Terrence McManus and Gerry Hemingway
With Michael Moore, Alex Maguire, and Han Bennink
With Mark Dresser
With Daniele D'Agaro and U.T. Gandhi
With Christy Doran, Bobby Previte, Gary Thomas
With Slickaphonics
With Ray Anderson and Gerry Hemingway a.k.a. BassDrumBone
With Ralph Alessi and Modular Theatre
With Barry Altschul
With Ray Anderson
With the Ed Blackwell Project
With Jane Ira Bloom
With Anthony Braxton
With Marilyn Crispell
With Franco D'Andrea
With Anthony Davis
With Benoît Delbecq Unit
With Paul Dunmall Sun Quartet
With Marty Ehrlich
With Ricardo Gallo's Tierra de Nadie
With Dennis González NY Quartet
With Jerome Harris
With Gerry Hemingway
With Peter Herborn
With David Lopato
With Joe Lovano
With Michael Moore
With Simon Nabatov
With Operazone
With Jim Pepper
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 Samo Salamon
  • Government Cheese
  • Two Hours
With Dave Schnitter'