Master jazz musician (acoustic bass, violin) Henry Grimes has played more than 400 concerts in 24 countries

Master jazz musician (acoustic bass, violin) HENRY GRIMES has played more than 4OO concerts in 24 countries (including many festivals) since 2OO3, when he made his astonishing return to the music world after 35 years away. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and attended the Mastbaum School and Juilliard.

As a youngster in the '5O's and early '6O's, he came up in the music playing and touring with Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, Arnett Cobb, "Bullmoose" Jackson, "Little" Willie John, and a number of other great R&B / soul musicians; but drawn to jazz, he went on to play, tour, and record with many great jazz musicians of that era, including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Sunny Murray, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, and Rev. Frank Wright.

Sadly, a trip to the West Coast to work with Al Jarreau and Jon Hendricks went awry, leaving Henry in Los Angeles at the end of the '6O's with a broken bass he couldn't pay to repair, so he sold it for a small sum and faded away from the music world. Many years passed with nothing heard from him, as he lived in his tiny rented room in an S.R.O. hotel in downtown Los Angeles, working as a manual laborer, custodian, and maintenance man, and writing many volumes of handwritten poetry.

He was discovered there by a Georgia social worker and fan in 2OO2 and was given a bass by William Parker, and after only a few weeks of ferocious woodshedding, Henry emerged from his room to begin playing concerts around Los Angeles and shortly afterwards made a triumphant return to New York City in May, 'O3 to play in the Vision Festival. Since then, often working as a leader, he has played, toured, and / or recorded with many of today's music heroes, such as Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Marilyn Crispell, Ted Curson, Andrew Cyrille, Bill Dixon, Dave Douglas, Andrew Lamb, Edward "Kidd" Jordan, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, William Parker, Marc Ribot, Wadada Leo Smith, and Cecil Taylor.

In the past few years, Henry has also held a number of residencies and offered workshops and master classes on major campuses (including Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, Hamilton College of Performing Arts, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, CalArts, Mills College, the University of Gloucestershire at Cheltenham, and several more). He can be heard on about a dozen new recordings, made his professional debut on a second instrument (the violin) at the age of 7O, has seen the publication of the first volume of his poetry, "Signs Along the Road," and creates illustrations to accompany his new recordings and publications.
Photo by Joan Cortes, Barcelona, '06

He has received many honors in recent years, including four Meet the Composer grants and a grant from the Acadia Foundation. He can be heard on more than 85 recordings on various labels, including Atlantic, Ayler Records, Blue Note, Columbia, ESP-Disk, ILK Music, Impulse!, JazzNewYork Productions, Pi Recordings, Porter Records, Prestige, Riverside, and Verve. Henry Grimes now lives and teaches in New York City.

N E W .. Y E A R ' S .. E V E ! !

at the Stone , northwest corner of Ave. C and 2nd St., Manhattan, curated by John Zorn, thestone. Both sets will be sold out, and it’s a small room, so please arrive early and wait quietly in line so as not to disturb the residential neighbors.

Friday, 12/31/1O, 7 pm:
JOHN ZORN, BILL LASWELL, & MILFORD GRAVES
John Zorn (alto saxophone), Bill Laswell (electric bass), Milford Graves (drums)

Friday, 12/31/1O, 11 pm:
“Bells at Midnight”
MARC RIBOT (guitar) w/ HENRY GRIMES (bass, violin), MARY HALVORSON (guitar), CHAD TAYLOR (drums), and JOHN ZORN (alto saxophone)
Marc Ribot and his trio + 2 perform a free ritual /jam leading through a midnight rendition of Albert Ayler's masterpiece “Bells.”

Henry Grimes playz the blues

with Marc Ribot and Chad Taylor