Jonas Hellborg

Jonas Hellborg is a Swedish bass guitarist, composer and improvisor equally at home working in global jazz fusion, funk, improvised music, post-bop, and prog rock and metal. Hellborg's hundreds of credits include high profile collaborations with John McLaughlin, Public Image Ltd., and Ginger Baker. His solo discography began with A Bassic Thing in 1981, followed by the funk meditation Dreamland in '83. In 1996, with guitarist Shawn Lane he released Abstract Logic, followed by Temporal Analogues Of Paradise with Lane and drummer Jeff Sipe. The trio issued Time Is The Enemy in 1997 and the acoustic Zenhouse in 1999. In 2000, with Lane and V. Selvaganesh, he released Good People In Times Of Evil and followed in 2002 with Icon featuring Lane, and the Vinayakrams, as well as the studio offering Personae with Lane and Sipe. Hellborg released the live Paris DVD with Lane and the Vinayakrams as a memorial to Lane who died in 2003. In 2005, Hellborg's global jazz fusion explorations netted Kali's Son. He formed Art Metal with Swede Mattias Ia Eklundh and V. Selvaganesh who issued an eponymous album in 2007 and The Jazz Raj in 2014. Hellborg joined guitarist Devin Townsend on The Puzzle in 2021. Hellborg was born in Gothenburg, Sweden. He taught himself to play bass at age 12 after being by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Deep Purple. In 1972 he heard The Inner Mounting Flame, by the Mahavishnu Orchestra; it changed his perception of music. The album influenced his sound and technique, and ultimately influenced his entire career. At 16 Hellborg undertook formal studies in jazz and classical music, and spent a great deal of time listening to Albert Ayler and John Coltrane. Further, he studiously applied himself to listening to, and formally studying the music of Miles Davis, from bebop to jazz- rock. This context provided Hellborg with a rediscovery of John McLaughlin a keyplayer on the earliest electric Davis records --Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson among them. McLaughlin, whose considerable abilities made him fluent in virtually any style he chose to play, became Hellborg's primary musical influence. The bassist formed several smaller jazz rock bands and worked the club scene in Sweden. Hellborg, by this time almost dazzlingly proficient on his instrument, began focusing on more challenging music and developing his technique to play solo bass concerts. In 1981, he was invited to play the Montreux Jazz Festival. He impressed saxophonist Michael Brecker. The elder musician introduced him to many jazz greats on the festival bill, including McLaughlin. In 1981, Brecker invited Hellborg to New York to open club dates for his band Steps Ahead. Upon his return from Sweden, Hellborg met famed Traffic percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah. The pair formed an ensemble and spent a year in England recording an album that went unfinished as Baah died unexpectedly. Hellborg formed his own Day Eight Music label and issued his debut album The Bassic Thing in 1981, and followed it a year later issued All Our Steps… in collaboration with drummer Michael Shrieve and pianist/keyboardist Michael J. Smith. In 1983, Hellborg released the solo album Dreamland, and completed the album he'd worked on with Baah. He released it under the title Melodies in a Jungle Man's Head. The following year he issued Elegant Punk, playing acoustic guitar and basses, and worked with Shrieve again on the drummer's In Suspect Terrain. McLaughlin came calling in early 1983. He recruited Hellborg to play in Mahavishnu, an almost completely new band --only drummer Billy Cobham returned from the original Mahavishnu Orchestra -- and completed by saxophonist Bill Evans, pianist/keyboardist Mitchell Forman and guests that included Zakir Hussain and Danny Gottlieb. They issued Mahavishnu in 1984 and toured the globe twice with Gottlieb replacing Cobham. Before Mahavishnu began its American tour, Shrieve introduced Hellborg to bassist/producer Bill Laswell who was recording Deadline's star-studded Down By Law. Hellborg appeared on two tracks "Gammatron," the single and "Baliphone Dub." The album was acclaimed globally, and although no one knew it then, it featured the final recordings of both Jaco Pastorius and Paul Butterfield. The pair became fast friends. Hellborg was committed to both McLaughlin and Mahavishnu. The pair played several duo dates in 1985 aside from the Mahavishnu tours, and made plans to record together again. Through Laswell, Hellborg located drummer Ginger Baker in Italy. He somehow managed to get him on board to play with him in a rhythm section on the Laswell-produced Album by PiL. The year also saw Hellborg record Axis with Bernie Worrell, Bernard Fowler and Anton Fier. It was a very busy time for the bassist. Mahavishnu's second album, Adventures in Radioland appeared in 1986 followed by another world tour and several duo tours for McLaughlin and Hellborg. He also recorded the album Bass for Day Eight Music with Baker and Worrell; it was released in 1988, the same year the bassist left McLaughlin's Mahavishnu. He also toured the U.S. with the guitarist and percussionist Trilok Gurtu, moved to New York, and co-founded Greenpoint Studio with Laswell. He played on Gurtu's Usfret in '88 and recruited the percussionist for his own Adfa in '89. That year the bassist formed the Jonas Hellborg Group with Turkish keyboardist Aydin Esen and drummer Kenwood Dennard. They released an eponymous album for Day Eight Music in 1990, toured Europe, and played on Euro television a lot. He also played on the Laswell produced Baker offering, Middle Passage. A second version of the JHG included siblings (and fellow Swedes) Jens and Anders Johansson from Yngwie Malmsteen's band. The Jonas Hellborg Group issued E in 1991. The year also saw the release of The Word with drummer Tony Williams and The Soldier String Quartet. A few months later he released the solo bass album, The Silent Life. The following year, Baker released Unseen Rain, a studio album with Hellborg and Jens Johansson (and the first to feature his now trademark instrument, the Wechter acoustic bass guitar), and in 1993 released the acoustic jazz offering, Octave Of The Holy Innocents with Shrieve and Buckethead. In 1994, Hellborg moved to Paris, guested on Material's Hallucination Engine, That same year, the bassist met uber guitarist and educator Shawn Lane (Black Oak Arkansas, Ringo Starr, D.D.T. et. al) who would profoundly influence his music. With drummer Kofi Baker they recorded and released Abstract Logic in 1995, a jazz-rock classic. Given Baker's many recording and touring commitments, the pair enlisted drummer Jeff Sipe for the tour; he formally joined the trio upon return. This group released Temporal Analogues Of Paradise in 1996, the last album from Day Eight Music. Lane and Hellborg releiased the duo offering Time is the Enemy in 1997 as the debut album from Hellborg's new label, Bardo Records. Two years later, the bassist teamed with a group of Arab musicans to release the global jazz fusion recordings, Aram of Two Rivers: Live in Syria, and Zenhouse with Lane and Sipe. In 2000, Lane and Hellborg recruited Vinayakram Selvaganesh (Shakti), and expanded the global fusion concept with the universally acclaimed Good People in Times of Evil. In 2002 they added Vinayakram Umamahesh (who also performs with Selvaganesh in The Two Vinayakrams). The resulting album, Icon - A Transcontinental Gathering drew many influences into their global jazz fusion, including beatboxing, Indian folk and classical music, funk and even metal tropes alongside incendiary group improvisation. Lane and Hellborg toured India with drummer Andrea Marchesini, and played a main stage at Swedish Jazz Celebration Festival, with a quintet that included V. Umamahesh, V. Umashankar, and Neelamani Ramakrishna. The trio of Hellborg, Lane and Sipe issued the studio album Personae in 2002. Tragedy struck on September 26, 2003, when Lane died in a Memphis hospital bed at the age of 40 after suffering from lung disease. Hellborg returned to studio recording with Kali's Son in 2005 and on the collaborative trio offering, Jeff Sipe Paul Hanson Jonas Hellborg. The following year he formed the band Art Metal, with both Johanssons, Selvaganesh, and guitarist Mattias IA Eklundh. Their debut album, Vyakhyan-Kar appeared in 2007. The band toured hard and Hellborg played with Herman Kathan's Busch-Werk to release Trance in 2011 and the following year the live DVD Purple Mind. In 2014, Art Metal, now a trio with Eklundh and drummer Ranjit Barot, issued the acclaimed The Jazz Raj. In 2021, Hellborg played on The Puzzle, a multi-disc conceptual offering by progressive metal guitarist Devin Townsend, and the privately issued Let Their Hearts Desire by Exit North, a collaborative project led by Thomas Feiner and Steve Jansen. The following year, Hellborg reprised his role with Townsend on the studio offering Lightwork. In 2023, the bassist issued the archival Concert Of Europe, sourced from a 1987 trio concert with Baker and Worrell.
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