The bard gives us advance notice of his upcoming medieval K-pop releases

MARK DRESSER, one of jazz’s foremost double-bassists, is Professor of Music at the University of California in San Diego, at the same Mexican frontier where legendary bassist Charles Mingus was born in Nogales.
Dresser’s musical life has included many years playing with Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill and numerous other jazz boundary-breakers but Mingus has had a profound influence. “As a teenager I was moved by Mingus’s recordings — the brilliance and audacious originality of his bass playing, the power and directness of his music,” he tells me.
“He and Jimi Hendrix pointed a direction, affirming the power of sound in time. Certainly, Mingus’s example was a template for self-actualisation as bass player, composer and bandleader that I could aspire to.”

CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May


