Mark Helias

Mark Helias stands out as a bassist drawn to experimental territories while also demonstrating skill as a composer whose contributions have gone largely unnoticed and showing equal ease in laying down funk rhythms. Born in 1950 in Brunswick, New Jersey, he took up the bass only at age twenty yet completed formal studies at Yale, receiving his degree in 1976. The following year he launched the group BassDrumBone alongside trombonist Ray Anderson and drummer Gerry Hemingway, while also working as a sideman on recordings by Anthony Braxton, Dewey Redman, Barry Altschul, and Anthony Davis. In 1981 he joined Anderson again to establish the free funk band Slickaphonics, supplying a substantial share of the ensemble’s original material. His debut recording under his own name, Split Image, appeared on Enja in 1984. Two years later he helped form the world-fusion collective Nu with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Carlos Ward, and Nana Vasconcelos; the group disbanded in 1987, after which Helias issued his second leader date, The Current Set, and followed it with Desert Blue in 1989. Additional sideman work during this period included Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Oliver Lake, Mose Allison, and the J.B. Horns. In 1992 he documented the quartet/quintet project Attack the Future and saw his piece “Upside the Downside” receive its premiere by the String Trio of New York. Loopin’ the Cool arrived in 1994 and remained his final major studio effort for some time. Toward the end of the decade he assembled the trio Open Loose, which at first included drummer Tom Rainey and tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin; the unit’s first release, Come Ahead Back, appeared in 1998 on a label other than Enja. Tony Malaby took Eskelin’s chair in 1999, a change documented on the live album New School issued in 2000, while Gerald Cleaver began sharing drum duties with Rainey. Helias also maintained a separate duo partnership with bassist Mark Dresser.