Biography
Ross McHenry, an Australian composer, bassist, and producer who has earned multiple awards, contributes to a continuing worldwide conversation surrounding inventive improvised music. His own pieces draw on jazz, Afrobeat, contemporary electronic textures, and sample-driven forms. The title suites of his 2013 release Distant Oceans and his 2017 release The Outsiders further illustrate this range of influences. McHenry’s recordings mirror Australia’s evolving cultural terrain and its modern sense of identity amid today’s tightly linked global music environment.
Although active as a solo artist, McHenry previously belonged to the futurist funk and soul group the Transatlantics, to Max Savage & the False Idols, and to Hurricanes; he also led the Afro-jazz collective Shaolin Afronauts. Performing internationally under his own name, he has shared stages with Mark de Clive Lowe, Myele Manzanza—who later joined him in the Ross McHenry Trio—Marcus Strickland, Eddie Bo, and Marva Whitney. Festival appearances have taken him to Glastonbury, the Sydney Festival, the Adelaide Festival, Womadelaide, Falls Festival, the Wellington International Jazz Festival, and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
All three Shaolin Afronauts albums—Flight of the Ancients (2011), Quest Under Capricorn (2012), and Follow the Path (2014), each issued by Freestyle—earned widespread praise and received extensive club and festival play from DJs. McHenry’s first solo album, Distant Oceans, recorded with a septet for First Word Records in 2013, received the South Australian Music Industry Award for best jazz album and brought him an achievement award for his contributions to Southern Australian music at the 2014 Fowlers Live Music Awards. Two years later he tracked Child of Somebody at Red Bull Studios in New York with many of the same musicians plus Strickland, Corey King, Tivon Pennicott, and Duane Eubanks; the record attracted still broader international attention.
For 2017’s The Outsiders McHenry confined himself to a trio featuring New Zealand drummer Manzanza and New York-based, multi-award-winning Australian pianist Matthew Sheens. Instead of retracing established American and British paths, the compositions explore geographic identity and celebrate the distinct sonic character of the musicians’ own backgrounds. McHenry explained it thusly: "We are connected to and understand the international history of jazz music, but we are outsiders. We belong in that grand and important lineage of artists, but our perspective is unique, because of where we are from; and as people from small, isolated cities and countries, we are outsiders. Even within the context of our own countries, we do not live or come from the most populous capitals of culture, we are outsiders. This is something we can rebel against, or it is something we can choose to own. I choose to own it, this group chooses to own it, but, most importantly, I feel it in the music." Critics writing about independent rock, pop, and jazz alike responded with unanimous praise.
Nothing Remains Unchanged, released in 2020, paired the bassist with an all-star quartet of Ben Wendel on tenor saxophone, Eric Harland on drums, and Matthew Sheens on piano. Written the previous summer during a residency at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for Creativity, the album was "strongly influenced by the mountain setting, which provided the solitude and space for deep reflection on both the present and the past, an aesthetic concern McHenry has illustrated throughout his career." ~ Thom Jurek
Although active as a solo artist, McHenry previously belonged to the futurist funk and soul group the Transatlantics, to Max Savage & the False Idols, and to Hurricanes; he also led the Afro-jazz collective Shaolin Afronauts. Performing internationally under his own name, he has shared stages with Mark de Clive Lowe, Myele Manzanza—who later joined him in the Ross McHenry Trio—Marcus Strickland, Eddie Bo, and Marva Whitney. Festival appearances have taken him to Glastonbury, the Sydney Festival, the Adelaide Festival, Womadelaide, Falls Festival, the Wellington International Jazz Festival, and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
All three Shaolin Afronauts albums—Flight of the Ancients (2011), Quest Under Capricorn (2012), and Follow the Path (2014), each issued by Freestyle—earned widespread praise and received extensive club and festival play from DJs. McHenry’s first solo album, Distant Oceans, recorded with a septet for First Word Records in 2013, received the South Australian Music Industry Award for best jazz album and brought him an achievement award for his contributions to Southern Australian music at the 2014 Fowlers Live Music Awards. Two years later he tracked Child of Somebody at Red Bull Studios in New York with many of the same musicians plus Strickland, Corey King, Tivon Pennicott, and Duane Eubanks; the record attracted still broader international attention.
For 2017’s The Outsiders McHenry confined himself to a trio featuring New Zealand drummer Manzanza and New York-based, multi-award-winning Australian pianist Matthew Sheens. Instead of retracing established American and British paths, the compositions explore geographic identity and celebrate the distinct sonic character of the musicians’ own backgrounds. McHenry explained it thusly: "We are connected to and understand the international history of jazz music, but we are outsiders. We belong in that grand and important lineage of artists, but our perspective is unique, because of where we are from; and as people from small, isolated cities and countries, we are outsiders. Even within the context of our own countries, we do not live or come from the most populous capitals of culture, we are outsiders. This is something we can rebel against, or it is something we can choose to own. I choose to own it, this group chooses to own it, but, most importantly, I feel it in the music." Critics writing about independent rock, pop, and jazz alike responded with unanimous praise.
Nothing Remains Unchanged, released in 2020, paired the bassist with an all-star quartet of Ben Wendel on tenor saxophone, Eric Harland on drums, and Matthew Sheens on piano. Written the previous summer during a residency at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for Creativity, the album was "strongly influenced by the mountain setting, which provided the solitude and space for deep reflection on both the present and the past, an aesthetic concern McHenry has illustrated throughout his career." ~ Thom Jurek
Albums
Singles
