Hank Roberts

Even in a parallel universe where jazz cellists are as common as tenor madmen and trumpet-blowing boppers, Hank Roberts would be utterly unique. Over his nearly four-decade career, Roberts has forged a compelling original voice on the cello, encompassing abstract improvisation and soulful folk melodies, intricate new-music compositions and vigorous rock songs.

Roberts’ latest CD, Everything Is Alive, features three long-time compatriots: guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Jerome Harris, and drummer Kenny Wollesen. The 2012 Winter & Winter release continues the cellist’s relationship with producer Stefan Winter, which stretches back through the bulk of Robert’s discography. The album’s ten original compositions speak with a direct voice inflected with roots, rock and funk accents.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Roberts studied at Berklee and made his name on the legendary Downtown scene in 1980s New York. Faced with a dearth of mentors or peers on his instrument, he carved his own path through that fertile ground alongside such frequent collaborators as Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Marc Ribot and John Zorn, finding a second home at the famed Knitting Factory. Like those fellow innovators, Roberts is equally at home in grand concert halls or dingy rock clubs, covering a wide swath of modern music.

The list of names with whom Roberts has shared stages or studios is staggering, including members of U2, Gavin Friday, Sting, Joel Grey, David Sanborn, Lydia Lunch, Mamadou Diabate, Andy Summers, Pat Metheny, Flo and Eddie, Gary Burton, Shane McGowan, and Julius Hemphill.

As a child, Roberts studied several different instruments and dreamed of one day becoming “a rock and blues guitar player, a jazz trombonist, and a classical cellist.” He has achieved all three, but on a single instrument, expanding the capability and vocabulary of the cello to accommodate his restless and wide-ranging imagination. He often accompanies himself with wordless vocals, emphasizing the pristine lyricism of his writing, even in the most angular and abstract of settings.

He has recently assembled a new quartet with Wollesen, Danish guitarist Jakob Bro, and Seattle bassist Luke Bergman and leads a trio with pianist John Stetch and drummer Jim Black. His 2008 CD Green, with Black and French guitarist Marc Ducret, won that year’s German Recording Critics’ Award. He is also a member of the folk group Ti Ti Chickpea and the anti-voilence ensemble Wiggy Dog Boy, which features his son on guitar. His solo performances are singularly compelling and unpredictable, wending from jagged dissonance to intoxicating pop songcraft.

Roberts is currently a member of Frisell’s 858 Quartet alongside violist Eyvind Kang and violinist Jenny Scheinman, and appeared on the guitarist’s Grammy-winning 2004 release Unspeakable. He also recently performed with the expanded eight-piece version of that group at Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory, accompanying a reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish” read by Hal Willner and Chloe Webb with music composed by Frisell, whose collaboration and friendship with Roberts dates back to 1975.

He recently also reunited with saxophonist Tim Berne in the quartet Buffalo Collision, also featuring pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer Dave King of The Bad Plus. Roberts and Berne began working together in the late eighties and formed the trio Miniature with drummer Joey Baron. At the same time, he co-founded the Arcado String Trio with bassist Mark Dresser and violinist Mark Feldman; in 1992, each member of the trio wrote an orchestral piece for Arcado and Germany’s WDR Orchestra.

Based since 1989 in the more serene environs of Ithaca, New York, Roberts finds inspiration in the area’s thriving Americana and folk music scene, which threads into his own work in intriguing and surprising ways. He performs annually at the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival, which spans a range of music from old-timey Americana to African and Cajun music. He’s shared that stage with artists such as Mamadou Diabate, Jeb Puryear, Keith Secola, Nery Arevalo, Martin Simpson, the Sim Redmond Band, John Brown’s Body, and Donna the Buffalo.

Roberts serves as a musical consultant for The Readers’ Theatre of Ithaca, for which he recently composed and performed a solo cello/voice score for a performance of Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya.” He also contributed arrangements and appears in the upcoming film Greetings From Tim Buckley, which will premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. The film, about the ill-fated father-and-son singer-songwriters Tim and Jeff Buckley, recreates a pivotal 1991 concert that Roberts performed with Jeff Buckley at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn.

In addition to his active performing career, Roberts has passed his knowledge on to new generations of creative musicians at educational institutions such as the Banff Center in Canada, Ithaca College, Cornell University and others.
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