Kent Kessler

Kent Kessler is an American jazz double-bassist, best known for his work in the Chicago jazz and avant garde music scene from the 1980s into the 2000s.

Kessler grew up in Cape Cod and began playing trombone at age ten. He and his family moved to Chicago when he was 13, and a few years later Kessler became intensely interested in jazz. While attending St. Mary Center For Learning High School, he began taking lessons from Kestutis Stanciauskas (Streetdancer) in electric bass and jazz theory in the middle of the 1970s. In 1977 he formed the ensemble Neutrino Orchestra with percussionist Michael Zerang and guitarists Dan Scanlan and Norbert Funk. He spent a year in Brazil in 1980-81 and spent time studying off and on at Roosevelt University in Chicago; he and Zerang also formed a group called Musica Menta, which played regularly at local Chicago venue Link's Hall. In the 1990s and afterwards he worked with leading Chicago musicians such as Hamid Drake, Fred Anderson, and Joe McPhee, and also with European musicians such as Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Misha Mengelberg, and Luc Houtkamp.

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