Jonas Hellborg
Encyclopedia
Jonas Hellborg is a Swedish
bass guitar
ist. He has collaborated with John McLaughlin
, Ustad Sultan Khan, Fazal Qureshi, Bill Laswell
, Shawn Lane
, Jens Johansson
, Michael Shrieve
, V. Selvaganesh
, Mattias IA Eklundh and Buckethead
.
who introduced him to John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham
and other fusion stars. He was asked to join John McLaughlin’s reformed Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1983 and he stayed with McLaughlin until 1988 touring and recording with Mahavishnu Orchestra and also doing several duet tours with McLaughlin during this time.
In 1986 and 1987 he toured with a project featuring Ginger Baker
on drums and Bernie Worrell
on keyboards.
In 1988 Hellborg moved to New York and started his own band which first included keyboardist Aydin Esen
and drummer Kenwood Dennard, later the Johansson Brothers, Jens on keyboards and Anders on drums. At the same time he started a recording studio together with producer/bassist Bill Laswell
called Greenpoint Studios. They recorded a multitude of records there until early 1993, including The Word together with Tony Williams, Octave of the Holy Innocents
with Mike Shrieve and Buckethead
, Materials Hallucination Engine, E with the Johansson Brothers.
In 1993 he sold his part in the studio to Laswell and resettled in Paris, France. The following year he teamed up with guitarist Shawn Lane
, a cooperation that would last 9 years. The first record was Abstract Logic
with Ginger Baker's son Kofi on drums; this was followed by Michael Shrieve
’s “Two Doors”. By the third record they were joined by drummer Jeff Sipe
and embarked on long stretch that produced 4 records and a lot of touring between 1995 and 1997.
In 1998 Hellborg met percussionist V. Selvaganesh
at a Zakir Hussain
concert in Paris. The two formed another long lasting musical partnership that has been ongoing since then. To start with Selvaganesh joined Hellborg in duets and in different “classical” settings Hellborg was working on at the time. Later a group was formed first in trio with Lane then grew into a quintet including Selvaganesh’s 2 brothers V. Umashankar and V. Umamahesh. 2 CD’s and a DVD were produced with this group. After Shawn Lane's death in 2003, Hellborg has continued to explore amalgamations of Indian and Western music, working with Indian masters as Debashish Bhattacharya
, Niladri Kumar
, Vikku Vinayakram, Tanmoy Bose and U. Shrinivas. He has also started a new Metal-Fusion project with guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh called Art Metal.
Hellborg founded his own record label Day Eight Music in 1979 releasing his first solo bass record The Bassic Thing – an early showcase of his pioneering chordal, and for the time very advanced, slapping approaches. It is also noteworthy that it was the first LP ever to feature solely bass guitar. With the move to the US a new entity was formed called Bardo Music that took over the responsibilities of Hellborgs output now counting around 40 odd releases.
, the first ever biamped bass amplifier (in cooperation with Italian company FBT
), a double neck bass, fretted and fretless, for British company Wal
in 1983 and, in 1984, an acoustic bass in collaboration with master luthier Abraham Wechter
.
After working with a further half dozen of other companies with signature models and inventions he now, together with Warwick
, created a new bass and a high end line of bass amplification.
Hellborg has published 2 books in the early 80’s with Music Sales of London, one on slap bass called Thumb Bassics, and a chord book called Chord Bassics.
With The Mahavishnu Orchestra
With Deadline
With Michael Joseph Smith
With Michael Shrieve
With Public Image Ltd
With Trilok Gurtu
With Sultan Khan and Fazal Qureshi
With Ginger Baker
With Kollektiv
With Jens Johansson
With Anders Johansson
With RAF (feat. Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, Jamal Evans)
With Reebop
With Shining Path
With Busch-Werk
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
ist. He has collaborated with John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
, Ustad Sultan Khan, Fazal Qureshi, Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
, Shawn Lane
Shawn Lane
Shawn Lane was an American musician. Although piano was his first instrument, he quickly became a noted player in underground guitar circles and joined Black Oak Arkansas when he was just fourteen years old....
, Jens Johansson
Jens Johansson
Jens Ola Johansson is a Swedish power metal keyboardist and pianist. He is notable for his high-speed neoclassical and fusion style.-Biography:...
, Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve is an American drummer, percussionist, and later, an electronic music composer. He is best known as the drummer in Carlos Santana's eponymous band, playing on their first eight albums from 1969 through 1974...
, V. Selvaganesh
V. Selvaganesh
V. Selvaganesh is an Indian percussionist working in the Carnatic tradition, and is one of the leading kanjira player of his generation. He is also known as "Chella S. Ganesh."-Early life:...
, Mattias IA Eklundh and Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...
.
Recording career
Hellborg began his music career in 1976 in Sweden touring with local rock acts. He was spotted by percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah in a small club in Stockholm 1979 and he moved to London for a year to work with Reebop on different projects. He played the Montreux Jazz festival in Switzerland in 1981 and met Michael BreckerMichael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...
who introduced him to John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham
William C. Cobham is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who has called Switzerland home since the late 1970s....
and other fusion stars. He was asked to join John McLaughlin’s reformed Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1983 and he stayed with McLaughlin until 1988 touring and recording with Mahavishnu Orchestra and also doing several duet tours with McLaughlin during this time.
In 1986 and 1987 he toured with a project featuring Ginger Baker
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...
on drums and Bernie Worrell
Bernie Worrell
George Bernard "Bernie" Worrell, Jr. is an American keyboardist and composer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic...
on keyboards.
In 1988 Hellborg moved to New York and started his own band which first included keyboardist Aydin Esen
Aydin Esen
Aydın Esen is a Turkish jazz musician who plays keyboards and electronics.Esen began music lessons at the age of 5 in Turkey. He moved to the United States when he was awarded a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston,also he graduated from Berklee College of Music in two semesters and...
and drummer Kenwood Dennard, later the Johansson Brothers, Jens on keyboards and Anders on drums. At the same time he started a recording studio together with producer/bassist Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
called Greenpoint Studios. They recorded a multitude of records there until early 1993, including The Word together with Tony Williams, Octave of the Holy Innocents
Octave of the Holy Innocents
Octave of the Holy Innocents is a studio album by Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg, experimental guitarist Buckethead and drummer Michael Shrieve first released in 1993....
with Mike Shrieve and Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...
, Materials Hallucination Engine, E with the Johansson Brothers.
In 1993 he sold his part in the studio to Laswell and resettled in Paris, France. The following year he teamed up with guitarist Shawn Lane
Shawn Lane
Shawn Lane was an American musician. Although piano was his first instrument, he quickly became a noted player in underground guitar circles and joined Black Oak Arkansas when he was just fourteen years old....
, a cooperation that would last 9 years. The first record was Abstract Logic
Abstract Logic
Abstract Logic is the first collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 1995 through Day Eight Music; a remastered and remixed edition containing a revised track listing and two extra tracks was reissued through Bardo Records in 2004.-Track listing:-2004...
with Ginger Baker's son Kofi on drums; this was followed by Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve is an American drummer, percussionist, and later, an electronic music composer. He is best known as the drummer in Carlos Santana's eponymous band, playing on their first eight albums from 1969 through 1974...
’s “Two Doors”. By the third record they were joined by drummer Jeff Sipe
Jeff Sipe
Jeff Sipe is an American drummer. He is a rock and jazz fusion drummer, however, he is proficient in many other styles which he has demonstrated in his decades of drumming. He is a founding member of Aquarium Rescue Unit along with Col. Bruce Hampton...
and embarked on long stretch that produced 4 records and a lot of touring between 1995 and 1997.
In 1998 Hellborg met percussionist V. Selvaganesh
V. Selvaganesh
V. Selvaganesh is an Indian percussionist working in the Carnatic tradition, and is one of the leading kanjira player of his generation. He is also known as "Chella S. Ganesh."-Early life:...
at a Zakir Hussain
Zakir Hussain (musician)
Zakir Hussain , , is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.-Early life:Hussain was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha. He attended St...
concert in Paris. The two formed another long lasting musical partnership that has been ongoing since then. To start with Selvaganesh joined Hellborg in duets and in different “classical” settings Hellborg was working on at the time. Later a group was formed first in trio with Lane then grew into a quintet including Selvaganesh’s 2 brothers V. Umashankar and V. Umamahesh. 2 CD’s and a DVD were produced with this group. After Shawn Lane's death in 2003, Hellborg has continued to explore amalgamations of Indian and Western music, working with Indian masters as Debashish Bhattacharya
Debashish Bhattacharya
Debashish Bhattacharya is an Indian classical musician who plays the lap slide guitar.Bhattacharya was born into a musical family in Kolkata, it became apparent that Bhattacharya was skilled at a young age...
, Niladri Kumar
Niladri Kumar
Niladri Kumar is an Indian classical and fusion musician. He performed on the sitar from a young age and toured and released albums as an adult. He created a unique instrument, a modified sitar, which he named zitar.-Early life:...
, Vikku Vinayakram, Tanmoy Bose and U. Shrinivas. He has also started a new Metal-Fusion project with guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh called Art Metal.
Hellborg founded his own record label Day Eight Music in 1979 releasing his first solo bass record The Bassic Thing – an early showcase of his pioneering chordal, and for the time very advanced, slapping approaches. It is also noteworthy that it was the first LP ever to feature solely bass guitar. With the move to the US a new entity was formed called Bardo Music that took over the responsibilities of Hellborgs output now counting around 40 odd releases.
Musical equipment
Hellborg has been involved in instrument design from early on in his career. His work includes a signature model for AriaAria (guitar company)
Aria is a Japanese manufacturer of acoustic and electric guitars and basses.- History :Aria was formed in Japan in 1953 by Shiro Arai as Arai and Company. They began retailing acoustic guitars in 1960, although the company didn't actually start manufacturing their own until 1964. Aria arranged for...
, the first ever biamped bass amplifier (in cooperation with Italian company FBT
FBT
The abbreviation FBT may refer to one of the following:*Fringe Benefits Tax*Flyback transformer*FBT - A sport apparel brand in Thailand*Greg Mueller, a Canadian poker player nicknamed "FBT".*The Fame Ball Tour 2009 Lady GaGa tour...
), a double neck bass, fretted and fretless, for British company Wal
Wal (bass)
Wal is a brand of electric bass manufactured by Electric Wood Ltd. in High Wycombe, England. It was started in 1974 by electronics expert Ian Waller and luthier Pete Stevens...
in 1983 and, in 1984, an acoustic bass in collaboration with master luthier Abraham Wechter
Abraham Wechter
Abraham Wechter is an American master luthier, who has been making custom guitars since the 1970s. He is best-known for building 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, but also builds acoustic bass guitars. He was a student of Richard Schneider, and worked for Gibson for ten years...
.
After working with a further half dozen of other companies with signature models and inventions he now, together with Warwick
Warwick (bass guitar)
-Overview:Warwick basses were originally a premium brand offering a small range of models built from high quality and exotic tonewoods with 'Neck-through' design...
, created a new bass and a high end line of bass amplification.
Hellborg has published 2 books in the early 80’s with Music Sales of London, one on slap bass called Thumb Bassics, and a chord book called Chord Bassics.
Discography
As band leader- The Bassic Thing (solo bass)(1979), Day Eight Music
- Elegant Punk (solo bass)(1984), Day Eight Music
- Axis (1988), Day Eight Music
- Adfa (1989), Day Eight Music
- Bass, Day Eight Music
- The Silent Life (acoustic solo bass) (1991), Day Eight Music
- Jonas Hellborg Group (1990), Day Eight Music
- Jonas Hellborg Group E (1991), Day Eight Music
- The Word (1991), Axiom
- Abstract Logic, Bardo
- Octave of the Holy InnocentsOctave of the Holy InnocentsOctave of the Holy Innocents is a studio album by Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg, experimental guitarist Buckethead and drummer Michael Shrieve first released in 1993....
(1993), Day Eight Music (re-released 2003, Bardo) - Temporal Analogues of ParadiseTemporal Analogues of ParadiseTemporal Analogues of Paradise is the second collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 1996 through Day Eight Music; a remastered edition was reissued through Bardo Records in 2004.-Track listing:...
, Bardo - Time Is the EnemyTime Is the EnemyTime Is the Enemy is the third collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 1997 through Bardo Records; a remastered edition was reissued in 2004.-Track listing:-Personnel:*Shawn Lane – electric guitar...
, Bardo - Aram of the 2 Rivers (1999), Bardo
- ZenhouseZenhouseZenhouse is the fourth collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 1999 through Bardo Records.-Track listing:-Personnel:*Shawn Lane – acoustic guitar...
(1999), Bardo - Good People in Times of EvilGood People in Times of EvilGood People in Times of Evil is the fifth collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 2000 through Bardo Records.-Track listing:-Personnel:*Shawn Lane – guitar*V. Selvaganesh – vocals, kanjira, udu...
, Bardo - PersonaePersonae (album)Personae is the sixth collaborative live album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 2002 through Bardo Records.-Track listing:-Personnel:*Shawn Lane – electric guitar*Jeff Sipe – drums...
, Bardo - Icon: A Transcontinental GatheringIcon: A Transcontinental GatheringIcon: A Transcontinental Gathering is the seventh and final collaborative album by bassist Jonas Hellborg and guitarist Shawn Lane, released in 2003 through Bardo Records...
, Bardo - Paris (DVD) Bardo
- Kali's Son (2006), Bardo
- Art Metal (2007), Bardo
With The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a jazz fusion group, led by John McLaughlin, that debuted in 1971, dissolved in 1976 and reunited from 1984 to 1987.-First Mahavishnu Orchestra:...
- MahavishnuMahavishnu (album)Mahavishnu is an album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, released in 1984 by Warner Bros. Records. In 1980's, McLaughlin reformed the Mahavishnu Orchestra for release of the two albums Mahavishnu and Adventures in Radioland...
, (1984) Warner Bros. - Adventures in RadiolandAdventures in RadiolandAdventures in Radioland is a 1987 album by the John McLaughlin-headed group Mahavishnu, released by the Relativity label which represents McLauglin's interest in electronic technology...
, (1986) Relativity
With Deadline
- Dissident (1991), Day Eight Music
- Down by Law, Cell
With Michael Joseph Smith
Michael Joseph Smith
Michael Joseph Smith is an American jazz composer a pianist born in born in Tiline, Kentucky. He has worked extensively in Europe and Asia and he resides in Sweden. At the age of 6 years, he gave his first concert of original solo piano music in Nashville, Tennessee. He served in the U.S...
- Faces, Day Eight Music
- All our steps, Day Eight Music
With Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve
Michael Shrieve is an American drummer, percussionist, and later, an electronic music composer. He is best known as the drummer in Carlos Santana's eponymous band, playing on their first eight albums from 1969 through 1974...
- Two Doors, CMP
- THE LEAVING TIME,NOVUS/BMG
With Public Image Ltd
- Album, Virgin
With Trilok Gurtu
- Usfret, CMP
With Sultan Khan and Fazal Qureshi
- Friends Across Boundaries, Ninaad Music
With Ginger Baker
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...
- Unseen Rain, Day Eight Music
- Middle Passage, Axiom
With Kollektiv
- feat. Jonas Hellborg, ITM
With Jens Johansson
Jens Johansson
Jens Ola Johansson is a Swedish power metal keyboardist and pianist. He is notable for his high-speed neoclassical and fusion style.-Biography:...
- Fjäderlösa tvåfotingar, Day Eight Music
With Anders Johansson
Anders Johansson
Anders Johansson is a Swedish musician. He is the son of Jan Johansson, famous jazz pianist and brother of keyboardist Jens Johansson.-Biography:...
- Shutka, Day Eight Music
- Red Shift, Heptagon
With RAF (feat. Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, Jamal Evans)
- Ode to a Tractor (1992), Day Eight Music
With Reebop
- Melodies in a Jungle Man's Head, Day Eight Music
With Shining Path
- No Other World (1992)
With Busch-Werk
- Busch-Werk & the Masters of Groove (DVD) (2009), Zauberhaus-Records (feat. Nippy Noya,Famoudou Konaté and others)
- Trance (2011), Zauberhaus-Records (feat. Nippy Noya,Famoudou Konaté, Baba Sissoko and others)