"I have found that all D'Addario products I’ve used have been of the highest quality. D'Addario, as a company, has proven to be very responsive to artists’ needs and suggestions."
FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $35 OR MORE
Mark Helias
Free Lance Bassist and Composer
"I have found that all D'Addario products I’ve used have been of the highest quality. D'Addario, as a company, has proven to be very responsive to artists’ needs and suggestions."
"I have been using D'Addario Zyex strings for a number of years and find them to be a good compromise between pizzicato and arco playing. The harmonics speak clearly and quickly while allowing for a very good response in exploring arco extended techniques on the double bass."
PRODUCTS Mark Helias USES
ABOUT Mark Helias
Mark Helias is a renowned bassist and composer who has performed throughout the world for more than three decades. After his studies at Rutgers University (B.A. 1974) and The Yale School of Music (M.M. 1976), he began his international career in the Anthony Braxton Quartet. Up to the present time he has performed with a panoply of world-class artists including: Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Marcel Khalife, Abbey Lincoln, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, Marilyn Crispell, Julius Hemphill, Don Byron, Uri Caine, Roswell Rudd, Bobby Bradford, Barry Altschul, Ray Anderson, Jane, Ira Bloom, Don Cherry, David Krakauer, Cecil Taylor, and Gerry Hemingway.
A prolific composer, Helias has written music for two feature films as well as chamber pieces and works for large ensemble and big band. His orchestra piece Stochasm was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in June of 2011. He has produced many recordings for other artists including Ray Anderson, Tony Malaby, Bobby Previte, Jerome Harris, David, and Mark Dresser.
Twelve albums of his music have been released since 1984, including Split Image, The Current Set (1987), Desert Blue (1989), Attack The Future (1992), Loopin' the Cool (1995), Fictionary (1998), Come Ahead Back (1998), New School (2001). Verbs of Will (2004), Atomic Clock (2006), Strange Unison (2008), Explicit (2011), and the latest on Intakt Records, The Signal Maker.
His trio, Open Loose with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey, has become an archetypal improvising ensemble on the New York scene. He continues performing and recording with BassDrumBone, a thirty-six-year collaboration with Gerry Hemingway and Ray Anderson. Mr. Helias performs solo bass concerts and can also be heard in the innovative bass duo, The Marks Brothers, with fellow bassist Mark Dresser. He teaches privately and at SIM (School for Improvisational Music).
