BERN NIX

Bern Nix is a jazz guitarist. He has recorded and performed with Ornette Coleman, notably playing alongside fellow guitarist Charlie Ellerbee in Coleman's Prime Time group on their key recordings from Dancing in Your Head in the mid-1970 to In All Languages in 1987.

He has released CDs including "Alarms And Excursions" (September 1, 1993). First teaching guitar after arrival in New York City, he is: originally a native of Ohio, resident of New York City, graduate of the Berklee College of Music.

Nix also performed with James Chance and the Contortions and appears on their 1981 Live in New York recording.

Nix has a solo recording entitled Low Barometer (Tompkins Square Records) which will be available on line September 2006.

Another recent composition, "Les is More", appears on "Art and Money", an album released by 1687, Inc. in 2006.

---------------

The only Bern Nix recording I own is Alarms and Excursions. It's an odd (and great) little record. Nix, a former member of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, takes the ideas of Coleman's "harmolodics" (where melody, harmony and rhythm are all equal players) and spins up some pretty brilliant sounds. To hear his clean-toned guitar slip out what at first sounds like an off-key retort to the bass is to hear not a mistake, but a revolution. If you can 'get' this then your ears will hunger for the rest of the harmolodic universe. You won't leave the rest of your musical world behind, but you will hear it in a different way.

Source: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/30/1151222.php
---------------

Bern Nix has played the guitar since the age of 11. Bern studied music and graduated with a degree in music education from the Berklee College of Music. Since 1985, he has led The Bern Nix Trio. Before leading his Trio, Bern performed and recorded with Ornette Coleman from 1975 to 1987 as an original member of the Prime Time Band. The Prime Time Band recorded six albums including Dancing in Your Head, Of Human Feelings and Body Meta and performed hundreds of concerts around the world. The Bern Nix Trios first recording, Alarms and Excursions (New World Records) was released in 1993, making many top ten critics lists. Bern has performed with artists such as, Ornette Coleman, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Jemeel Moondoc, Ronald Shannon Jackson, James Chance, Jayne Cortez and Kip Hanrahan. Hailed as one of the greatest jazz guitarists of our time, Bern was voted among the top ten jazz guitarists poll by Down Beat magazine. Most recently, Bern composed and recorded the score for the feature length documentary, A James Lord Portrait. Bern has a solo album coming out this fall on Tompkins Square Records.

Source: http://www.myspace.com/bernnix