Drew Gress

Gress studied at Towson State University and Manhattan School of Music.^[1] In the late 1980s he worked with Phil Haynes, recording several albums with the group Joint Venture.^[1]

In 1998, he released his first album as leader, Heyday, with his band Jagged Sky (featuring David Binney, Ben Monder, and Kenny Wollesen).^[2] Gress wrote all except two of the compositions.^[3] Two years later, he recorded Spin & Drift, on which he also played steel guitar. He recorded material for two further albums – 7 Black Butterflies and The Irrational Numbers – in 2004.^[3]

Gress has taught at Peabody Conservatory and Western Connecticut State University. He has also served tenures as artist in residence at University of Colorado-Boulder and at Russia's St. Petersburg Conservatory.^[1][2]

Gress has toured Europe, Asia, and South America.^[2] Those with whom he has and continues to work include Tim Berne,^[4] Uri Caine, Fred Hersch, Don Byron, Dave Douglas, and Erik Friedlander.^[2]

Critic John Fordham described a performance by Gress's group as "one of the great jazz performances in Britain in 2002".^[5] In 2004, the UK's BBC Radio and London's Guardian selected his quartet's live radio broadcast as Jazz Concert of the Year.^{[citation needed]}

Composition awards include an NEA grant (1990),^[2] funding from Meet the Composer (2003).^[2]

The DownBeat reviewer of Vesper, a collaboration between Gress and the trio expEAR, wrote that the bassist "has exquisite time and a composer's sense of line, a combination that allows him an insightful level of counterpoint in his playing".^[6] The DownBeat reviewer of Gress's The Sky inside wrote that he "favors a focused restraint, a sort of concentrated tension that wrings the maximum inspiration from minimal elements, and which maintains a taut severity even when spare free passages burst into angular swing".^[7]

• Heyday (as Drew Gress's Jagged Sky) (Soul Note, 1998)
• Spin & Drift (Premonition, 2001)
• 7 Black Butterflies (Premonition, 2005)
• The Irrational Numbers (Premonition, 2008)
• And Again with Shims Trio (Deepdig, 2012)
• The Sky Inside (Pirouet, 2013)

With John Abercrombie

• Within a Song (ECM, 2012)
• 39 Steps (ECM, 2013)
• Up and Coming (ECM, 2017)

With Tim Berne

• Visitation Rites (Screwgun, 1997)
• Please Advise (Screwgun, 1999)
• Pre-Emptive Denial (Screwgun, 2005)

With Uri Caine

• Wagner e Venezia (Winter & Winter, 1997)
• The Goldberg Variations (Winter & Winter, 2000)
• Uri Caine Ensemble Plays Mozart (Winter & Winter, 2006)

With Yelena Eckemoff

• In the Shadow of a Cloud (L&H, 2017)
• Better Than Gold and Silver (L&H, 2018)
• I Am a Stranger in This World (L&H, 2022)

With Fred Hersch

• Dancing in the Dark (Chesky, 1993)
• Plays ... (Chesky, 1994)
• Point in Time (Enja, 1995)
• Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn (Nonesuch, 1996)
• The Duo Album (Classical Action, 1997)
• Live at the Village Vanguard (Palmetto, 2002)
• Trio + 2 (Palmetto, 2004)
• Night & the Music (Palmetto, 2007)
• '97 @ The Village Vanguard (Palmetto, 2018)
• Breath by Breath (Palmetto, 2022)
• The Surrounding Green (ECM, 2025)

With Joint Venture

• Joint Venture (Enja, 1987)
• Ways (Enja, 1989)
• Mirrors (Enja, 1994)

With Kenny Werner

• Beauty Secrets (RCA/BMG, 1999)

With others

• Ralph Alessi, Baida (ECM, 2013)
• Ray Anderson, Big Band Record (Gramavision, 1994)
• Lynne Arriale, With Words Unspoken (DMP, 1996)
• Jon Ballantyne, The Loose (Justin Time, 1994)
• Don Byron, Romance with the Unseen (Blue Note, 1999)
• Marc Copland, Night Whispers (Pirouet, 2009)
• Marc Copland, Better by Far (InnerVoice, 2017)
• Dave Douglas, Five (Soul Note, 1996)
• Dave Douglas, Convergence (Soul Note, 1999)
• Ellery Eskelin, Setting the Standard (Cadence, 1989)
• Erik Friedlander, Chimera (Avant, 1995
• Erik Friedlander, The Watchman (Tzadik, 1996)
• David Kane, Machinery of the Night (Magellan, 2006)
• Tony Malaby, Apparations (Songlines, 2003)
• Liam Noble, Romance Among the Fishes (Basho, 2005)
• Jason Robinson, Tiresian Symmetry (Cuneiform, 2012)
• Samo Salamon, Almost Almond (Sanje, 2011)
• John Surman, Brewster's Rooster (ECM, 2007)
• Tom Varner, Martian Heartache (Soul Note, 1996)