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‘There are many ways to counter the state of the state’
Jazz musician MARK DRESSER gives the lowdown on his new album Ain't Nothing but a Cyber Coup and You to Chris Searle

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.

Dynamic spirit: Mark Dresser

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.

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