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[edit] Biography
Jonas Hellborg, born June 7th, 1958, is a Swedish bass guitarist and fusion musician. His career as a professional musician started in the 1976, and over the years, he has played with the likes of John Mclaughlin, Mahavishnu, Shawn lane, Bill Laswell, Public Image ltd, Steve Vai, Mark King, Shawn Lane, Jeff Sipe, the Johannsen brothers, Anders Nord, Buckethead, Michael Shrieve, Nildari Kumar, V.Selvaganesh, Mattias Eklund and others. He is the founder of bother Day Eight Music and Bardo Records, and has released his own music on both labels.
1980's
Jonas was discovered by the music press at large in the early 1980's. After playing at a Swedish Jazz festival in 1982, he was put in touch with John Mclaughlin, founding member of The Mahavishnu Orchestra. John was at the time reforning the Mahavishnu Orchestra, albeit a stripped down version with only Billy Cobham and himself retunring from the original lineup. Jonas was invited to play with Mahavishnu, replacing Irish bassist Rick Laird from the original lineup. His first show with them was televised for Parisian television, recordings of which can still be found today. At the time, Jonas had written some material as a solo bassist, some of which would appear on his solo bass album "Elegant Punk". Some of this material was showcased during the early Mahavishnu shows. Jonas played on two Mahavishnu records, "Mahavishnu" and "Adventures in Radioland" (by which time Danny Gottlieb had replaced Cobham). Though Jonas accepts that playing in Mahavishnu at the time helped to make a name for him on the international scene, he states that the music they made was "of no great worth" due to the projects being based on what he conceived as "financial motivation" rather than "artistic integrity". Jonas also played in a duo setting with Mclaughlin, and was filmed doing so for the German music tv show Ohne Filter. On the show they played a number of John's songs, such as "Are you the one? Are you the one?" and their famous cover of the Mingus tune "Goodbye Pork pie Hat". Jonas also had a small segment featuring his Wal doubleneck bass, in which he demontrates the advantages of the instrument. As a conclusion to working with John, Jonas was briefly a member of the "The John Mclaughlin trio", playing alongside Trilok Gurtu and John. Jonas appeared in televised recordings of the band, but never formally recorded as a member of the trio. Having met trilok through the trio, Jonas went on to play on his "Usfret" album.
Other work in the 1980's
In the 1980's, Jonas formed Day Eight Music as a label on which he could release his own recordings. In 1982 he made his first solo bass recording called "The Bassic Thing", of which only 1000 copies were printed. However, he has conceded that this record was of little musical merit, and "should not be heard by anyone". A more serious effort is Elegant Punk. The album was a milestone for bass as a solo instrument. Divided into 3 cuts, the first features Jonas playing songs in a single take on his fretted bass. The tracks in the second cut are multi-track compostions, with Jonas playing both fretted and fretless basses. There is an interlude with the track "Elegant Punk for guitar" and then a the final cut, featuring multi-track compostions with Jonas playing his Wal double neck. The album, though suffering from a somewhat "wooly" production, received positive reviews and has gone on to be one of Jonas's most sought after releases (it is now out of print). In 1983, Jonas played bass on Reebop Kawku Baah's album "Melodies in a Jungle Man's Head". Reebop died of a cerebral haemorrhage during the recording of the album, and it was released in it's unfinished state. Hellborg dedicated a track to Reebop on "Elegant Punk". Jonas also played on the Public Image Ltd album "Compact Disc/Casette/Vinyl", alongside musicians like Steve Vai, Ginger Baker (of whom Jonas would go on to work with in future, playing bass on two of his albums), Tony Williams and John Lydon. Jonas also formed the "Jonas Hellborg Group", which, in it's formative year, was a trio of Jonas, Swedish bassist Anders Nord and Jamie Salazar on electric drums. The group recorded an album, which is also out of print. At the time, Jonas started working with Anders and Jens Johannsson, sons of famous Swedish jazz-painist Jan Johannsson (who had a track dedicated to his memory on the "Elegant Punk" album) and former members of Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force. They would go on to form the progressive thrash metal group Shining Path with Mudbone Cooper and record an album in 1992, and would also release a second "Jonas Hellborg Group" album entitled "e"(1992), which featured the band playing updated tracks from the first album. This record is also out of print, as is the Shining Path album "No Other World" (noted for it's controversial cover art). Jonas also features in two teaching books in the 1980's, published by Day Eight Music and Amsco, titled "Chord Bassics" and "Thumb Bassics". The latter is especially sought after, coming with a floppy record and having a more limited print run.
Post 1990
The 90's and post Millenium years proved to be as fruitful for Jonas as the 1980's had been. In 1994, he met Shawn Lane at a music trade show, after having heard much about the "musical enigma" as Jonas described him. Lane would go on to be Hellborg's longest standing collaborator, playing with him over a period of 9 years until his death in 2003. The pair first appeared on record on 1994's "Abstract Logic", with Ginger Baker's son Kofi, at the time only 17, playing drums. The record is considered Hellborg's first foray into Indian music, though he admitted to having been a fan of Indian Carnatic, Hindustani and Pakistanni music for many years, having first discovered it through McLaughlin's band, Shakti. Abstract Logic has many passages that bear a carnatic influence, at least in the melodies, if not the structure of the songs. Lane was contrast to this, at times, his blues background showing through in licks reminsicent of Eric Johnson, amoung others. Abstract Logic was recently re-released by Bardo Records as part of the Retrospective scheme, having been remastered and extra tracks been added. Jonas also worked with former Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, recording the album "Octave Of The Holy Innocents" with Buckethead playing acoustic guitar. In 1995, Hellborg and Lane travelled to China, where they played with flutist Du-Chi Wen. Also in 1995, the duo played and recorded with Jeff Sipe (Apt Q-258), who would go on to record several albums with them. These included "Temporal Analogues of Paradise", "Time Is The Enemy", the acoustic fusion album "Zenhouse" and an album of retrospective reinterpretations of their songs entitled "Personae"
