Dmitry Ishenko is an experienced and versatile bass player currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed with such Jazz notables as Steve Lacy, Joe Lovano, Marty Ehrlich, Ingrid Jensen, Joe Hunt, Bob Gullotti, and others. Although mainly a Jazz bass player, he works in a variety of other genres, including Funk, R&B, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and Free Improvisation. He is equally at home on both the Acoustic and the Electric Bass, and has developed a unique and recognizable voice on the somewhat uncommon Upright Electric Bass.
Dmitry was born in Odessa, Ukraine, where he studied piano as a child, and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of 13. He picked up the Acoustic Bass in Middle School and began taking Jazz Guitar lessons around the same time. Fascinated by a John Coltrane tape that a friend lent him, Dmitry joined his high school Jazz band, which began performing professionally around San Francisco, separately from the school. By the time he graduated High School, he was already gigging several times a week with various Jazz, Funk, and Rock bands, and, after enrolling in the music department at the University of California in Berkeley, he began studying classical composition, as well as classical Double Bass with Stephen Tramontozzi, the Assistant Principal Bass Chair of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Maintaining a busy performing schedule, Dmitry was a regular member of Summit Records artist Joe Fuentes' Jazz Trio, as well as an in demand session player, appearing on recordings with Calvin Keys (Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles), Chester Thompson (Santana, Tower of Power), Ron E. Beck (Tower of Power), and many others.
In 1999, after receiving the World Tour Scholarship from the presitgious Berklee College of Music, Dmitry moved to Boston to further his musical education. He quickly became an active performer on the Boston scene, performing all over New England in some of the best local venues, including the Regatta Bar, Ryles Jazz Club, and others.
In 2002, he was accepted into the Master's program at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with such legendary Jazz musicians as Steve Lacy, Cecil McBee, Danilo Perez, and Jerry Bergonzi. In 2003, soprano sax legend Steve Lacy invited Dmitry and guitarist Geoff Miller to be part of a new project, a trio with an instrumentation never before heard in Lacy's prolific discography. Although short-lived (Steve Lacy passed away in June of 2004), the trio made a memorable two day appearance at the Zeitgeist Gallery, which, unfortunately, also happened to be the very last two performances of the saxophonist's life.
Dmitry continues to maintain a very busy performance schedule, and, in addition to being an active freelance bass player, is also a long-standing member of Jazz Vocalist Marianne Solivan's quartet (with whom he toured Japan, performs regularly in New York City, and can be heard every Saturday night at Les Zygomates in Boston), Analog Planet - a sax/bass/drums power trio, Infinite Out, a Jazz/Electronica original project, and, most recently, Choose To Find, an original instrumental Rock quartet.
ANALOG PLANET LIVE @ STACCATTO MUSIC HALL, WASHINGTON DC, JULY 2006
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LIVE AT ZEITGEST GALLERY APRIL 2004
LIVE AT ZEITGEIST GALLERY APRIL 2004
