Patrick O'Hearn

Patrick O'Hearn, a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose path led unexpectedly into new age territory, began as a jazz bassist working with Charles Lloyd and Dexter Gordon before serving as a sideman for Frank Zappa and later joining new wave band Missing Persons on bass and synthesizers. He entered electronic music with the 1990 release of Ancient Dreams, a set of keyboard instrumentals produced by Peter Baumann and issued on Baumann’s Private Music label. A subsequent contract with Windham Hill yielded several popular and critically acclaimed albums, after which O’Hearn self-released multiple Grammy-nominated projects. His bass-heavy, hypnotic compositions drew interest from film directors, resulting in several original scores.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Oregon, O’Hearn encountered many musical styles through his parents, both working musicians. Although he trained on cello, violin, and flute, he first performed on bass in his parents’ lounge act. Those abilities soon placed him alongside jazz artists such as Joe Henderson, Joe Pass, Tony Williams, and Charles Lloyd. While based in San Francisco during the mid-’70s, he again played with Frank Zappa and co-founded the progressive band Group 87 with Mark Isham and Peter Maunu before entering Missing Persons. Traces of those experiences surface in his solo work, shaped into a distinctly personal electronic language. With the arrival of the new millennium he began issuing self-produced albums, the first of which was So Flows the Current.