Henry Grimes | |
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 Grimes in 2005 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Henry Alonzo Grimes |
| Born | (1935-11-03)November 3, 1935 Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, US |
| Died | April 15, 2020(2020-04-15) (aged 84) New York City, US |
| Genres | Jazz, avant-garde |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instrument(s) | Double bass, violin |
| Years active | Mid-1950s–1969, 2003–2020 |
| Labels | Atlantic, Ayler, Blue Note, Columbia, ESP-Disk, ILK Music, Impulse!, JazzNewYork Productions, Pi Recordings, Porter, Prestige, Riverside, Verve |
| Website | www |
Henry Grimes (November 3, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was an Americanjazzdouble bassist and violinist.
After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist infree jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music scene by 1970.[1] Grimes was often presumed to have died, but he was discovered in 2002 and returned to performing.[1]
Henry Alonzo Grimes was born inPhiladelphia, to parents who both had been musicians in their youth.[2] He took up theviolin at the age of 12, and then began playingtuba,English horn,percussion, finally switching to thedouble bass atMastbaum Technical High School.[3] He furthered his musical studies atJuilliard and established a reputation as a versatile bassist by the mid-1950s.
Grimes recorded or performed with pianistLennie Tristano andsaxophonistsLee Konitz,Gerry Mulligan andSonny Rollins, pianistsThelonious Monk andMcCoy Tyner, singerAnita O'Day, clarinetistBenny Goodman and many others.[1] When bassistCharles Mingus was experimenting with a second bass player in his band, Grimes was the person he selected for the job.[1] One of his earliest appearances on film is captured in theBert Stern documentary on theNewport Jazz Festival of 1958,Jazz on a Summer's Day. Grimes was 22 years old, and as word spread among the musicians about his extraordinary playing, he ended up playing with six different groups in the festival that weekend: those ofBenny Goodman,Lee Konitz,Thelonious Monk,Gerry Mulligan,Sonny Rollins, andTony Scott.[3] And though Henry's name never even appeared in the festival's printed program,New York Times criticBosley Crowther took note of the remarkable young bassist and listed him as one of the festival's primary players.[4]
Gradually growing interested in the burgeoningfree jazz movement, Grimes performed with most of the music's important names, including pianistCecil Taylor, trumpeterDon Cherry, saxophonistsSteve Lacy,Pharoah Sanders,Archie Shepp, andAlbert Ayler. He released one album,The Call, as a trio leader for theESP-Disk record label in 1966. The album featuresPerry Robinson on clarinet and drummer Tom Price and is considered to be representative of his career at that time.
In the late 1960s, Grimes's career came to a halt after his move toCalifornia. It was commonly assumed Grimes had died; he was listed as such in several jazz reference works. Then Marshall Marrotte, asocial worker and jazz fan, set out to discover Grimes's fate once and for all. In 2002, he found Grimes alive but nearly destitute, without a bass to play, renting a tiny apartment inLos Angeles, California, writing poetry and doing odd jobs to support himself. He had fallen out of touch with the jazz world and was unawareAlbert Ayler had died in 1970 but was eager to perform again.[5] Word spread of Grimes's return, and some musicians and fans offered their help. BassistWilliam Parker donated a bass[6] (nicknamed "Olive Oil" for its distinctive greenish color) and with David Gage's help had it shipped from New York to Los Angeles, and others assisted with travel expenses and arranging performances. Grimes's return was featured inThe New York Times and onNational Public Radio. A biography,Music to Silence to Music, was published by Northway Books in London in 2015.
Making up for lost time, Grimes performed at more than two dozen music festivals or other appearances in 2003. He received a returning hero's welcome at the free jazz-orientedVision Festival, and began teaching lessons and workshops for bassists. His November 2003 appearance on trumpeterDennis González'Nile River Suite was the bassist's second recording in more than 35 years,[7] the first being a JazzNewYork recording of a solo concert that Grimes played on the air fromWKCR-FM's studios atColumbia University in New York within weeks of his return to New York. In 2004, he recorded as leader withDavid Murray andHamid Drake; and in 2005 with guitaristMarc Ribot, who also wrote an introduction to Grimes' first book,Signs Along the Road, published in March 2007 bybuddy's knife jazzedition inCologne,Germany, a collection of Grimes'poetry in which he presents his selection of entries from thousands of pages of his writings during the long years he was not playing music. Also in 2007, Grimes recorded with drummerRashied Ali, with whom he played a half-dozen duo concerts and a trio withMarilyn Crispell, and in 2008 withPaul Dunmall andAndrew Cyrille, a co-leader trio called the Profound Sound Trio, among others. Following his return in 2003, Grimes played at many venues around New York City and on tour in the United States, Canada, and 30 countries in Europe, the Far East, and Brazil, often working as a leader, making music withRashied Ali,Marshall Allen,Fred Anderson,Marilyn Crispell,Ted Curson,Andrew Cyrille,Bill Dixon,Dave Douglas,Andrew Lamb,Joe Lovano,Roscoe Mitchell,William Parker,High Priest (fromAnti-Pop Consortium),Wadada Leo Smith,Cecil Taylor (with whom Grimes resumed playing in October, 2006 after 40 years),John Tchicai, and many others.
In 2011, theChelsea Art Museum hosted a re-creation of the performanceBlack Zero, a happening created in the 1960s by pioneering media artistAldo Tambellini. Tambellini performed the multi-media piece on several occasions between 1965 and 1968, often in collaboration with jazz musicians such as Bill Dixon andCecil McBee. The performance at the Chelsea Art Museum was produced by Swiss conceptual artistChristoph Draeger, who invited Grimes to join. Grimes played withBen Morea, accompanying simultaneous slide and film projections by Aldo Tambellini and sound recordings of the lateCalvin Hernton's radical poetry.[8] In all, between Henry Grimes's return to the music world in 2003 and his 80th year, 2016, he played more than 640 concerts, including many festivals, in 30 countries.
In his last years, Grimes also held a number of residencies and offered workshops and master classes on major campuses, includingCity College of New York,Berklee College of Music,Hamilton College,New England Conservatory, theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, theUniversity of Michigan at Ann Arbor, theUniversity of Gloucestershire atCheltenham,Humber College, and more. He released or played on a dozen new recordings, made his professional debut on a second instrument (the violin) at Cecil Taylor's side atLincoln Center at the age of 70, and had been creating illustrations to accompany his new recordings and publications. Grimes received many honors in recent years, including four Meet the Composer grants. He can be heard on nearly 90 recordings on various labels, including Atlantic, Ayler Records,Blue Note,Columbia,ESP-Disk,ILK Music,Impulse!, JazzNewYork Productions,Pi Recordings,Porter Records,Prestige,Riverside, andVerve. Grimes was a resident of New York City and had a busy schedule of performances, clinics, and international tours.
On June 7, 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Arts for Art/Vision Festival on opening day atJudson Memorial Church in New York City. He stopped performing in 2018, with the relentless progression of the effects ofParkinson's disease causing severe disabilities.[2]
Henry Grimes died on April 15, 2020, at the age of 84 from complications ofCOVID-19.[2] His wife, Margaret Davis-Grimes confirmed the date of his death and its cause to theJazz Foundation of America.[9]
withMose Allison
withAlbert Ayler
WithBill Barron
withRoy Burns
withDon Cherry
withWalt Dickerson
withShafi Hadi
withRoy Haynes
withLee Konitz
withRolf Kühn
withCarmen Leggio
WithGerry Mulligan
withWilliam Parker
withMarc Ribot
withSonny Rollins
withPharoah Sanders
withShirley Scott
withArchie Shepp
withBilly Taylor
withCecil Taylor
withLennie Tristano
withMcCoy Tyner
withMarzette Watts
withFrank Wright
Additional recent CD releases can be found at |url=https://henrygrimes.com/storeArchived 2020-06-11 at theWayback Machine].
Discographical indexes list the band under the name of the Shafi Hadi Sextet.
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