# Henry Grimes, bassist of Avant-Garde pedigree, dies of COVID-19 at 84: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/04/20/henry-grimes-bassist-of-avant-garde-pedigree-dies-of-covid-19-at-84-videos-photos/
- Published: 2020-04-20T08:52:00+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Henry Grimes met with a hero’s welcome, his first of many, when he lugged an upright
bass onstage at the eighth annual Vision Festival.**

This was May 24, 2003, and the feeling in the room, at Old St. Patrick’s Youth Center
in SoHo, was momentously charged. It had been 35 years since Grimes last played 
in New York, and for much of that time he’d been a ghost — an unanswerable whatever-
happened-to question, as far as the jazz world was concerned. Some reference books
had actually listed him as deceased.

[His performance that evening](https://youtu.be/9l-vY7tN5i8), with fellow bassist
William Parker and alto saxophonist Rob Brown, served notice that Grimes was not
only alive but still a vital force — bowing his instrument with manic clarity, burrowing
into the thorny center of the sound.

It marked the start of a legendary comeback that stretched more than 15 years, until
his death on Wednesday at Northern Manhattan Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in
Harlem. His wife, Margaret Davis Grimes, confirmed the details to the Jazz Foundation
of America, which had been assisting with his care. She said the cause was complications
from the coronavirus.

Before his disappearing act — which invites comparison with saxophonist Giuseppi
Logan, who also died this week[, ](https://www.wbgo.org/post/giuseppi-logan-free-jazz-multireedist-who-returned-once-oblivion-has-died-84)
of a similar cause  — Grimes had been a bassist in high demand and even higher promise.
Known both for his versatility and the stout fullness of his sound, he began to 
make a mark in the mid-to-late 1950s, on albums by saxophonists Lee Konitz, Gerry
Mulligan and Sonny Rollins.

Grimes played the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with Rollins, and is captured in the
film _Jazz on a Summer’s Day _with an ad hoc trio featuring Thelonious Monk and 
Roy Haynes.

In the ‘60s, Grimes began to branch into a burgeoning avant-garde: he appears on
Haynes’ _Out of the Afternoon _and Gil Evans’ _Into the Hot_; he anchored the Steve
Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet on _School Days _and the McCoy Tyner Trio (again with 
Haynes) on _Reaching Fourth. _Then came a decisive pivot to free jazz, which had
become an onrushing force by 1965, the year of Grimes’ first album, _The Call._

[[

By that point, Grimes had already appeared on several albums by saxophone firebrand
Albert Ayler, notably _Spirits _and _Witches & Devils. _In ‘65 he played on Ayler’s
_Spirits Rejoice _— along with a handful of other avant-garde touchstones, like 
Don Cherry’s _Complete Communion,_ Sunny Murray’s _Sunny’s Time Now_, and Frank 
Wright’s _Frank Wright Trio._

Grimes was a member of the Cecil Taylor Unit, which appeared on half of _Into the
Hot. _Taylor’s fluent yet spiky pianism, and his comfort with atonality, didn’t 
faze him in the slightest; he subsequently appeared on _Conquistador! _and _Unit
Structures. _Each is an essential album in the avant-garde canon, and each represents
a high-water mark for early Taylor.

In 1968, Grimes headed for California, in search of sunshine and the promise of 
work. Things didn’t work out that way. His bass was damaged, and he pawned it. Without
an instrument, gigs were hard to come by, so he did an assortment of construction
and custodial work. He was homeless at times, and prone to erratic behavior.

[[

Henry Grimes at the Abrons Arts Center, June 10, 2011

His rediscovery came through the tenacious efforts of a social worker named Marshall
Marrotte, who studied court records and other documents in order to find him in 
2002. Grimes owned no instrument, so Margaret Davis began a campaign to get him 
one. This led to William Parker donating one of his own, a green-painted bass he’d
dubbed Olive Oil.

Grimes would go on to play hundreds of gigs with that instrument, in New York and
around the world. Among them was a return to the Vision Festival in 2004, when he
performed in a trio with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Andrew Cyrille. He
also rekindled his musical relationships with Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon, and forged
new ones with a wide range of admirers, like guitarist Marc Ribot. He could often
be seen in the audience at performances in New York, typically wearing a trademark
headband, with Davis by his side.

Henry Grimes was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 3, 1935. His first instrument was 
the violin, which he picked up again in earnest after his return to performing. 
He graduated from the Jules Mastbaum Vocational/Technical School in the Kensington
neighborhood of Philly, and went on to Juilliard in New York, to study with Frederick
Zimmermann, principal bassist for the New York Philharmonic. (There was no jazz 
outlet at Juilliard then, and he left after a year.)

Grimes led a prolific second act — enjoying his avant-garde eminence, performing
on many more Vision Festivals, and holding the center of gravity in countless improvisational
settings. One of his most fruitful collaborations was with Ribot, who had revered
his work with Ayler. In 2005, Ribot released an Ayler tribute called _Spiritual 
Unity, _with Grimes, trumpeter Roy Campbell and drummer Chad Taylor.

In a 2012 interview with Brad Farberman for _The Village Voice, _Ribot reflected
on what made Grimes such an ideal musical partner: First of all, he’s a great improviser.
Full of ideas. One of the things that you see in some beginning improvisers are 
that if you play a note they have to play the same note just to show, “Hey. See,
I heard you.” [laughs] Henry manages to counterpoint whatever’s going on, but he
doesn’t have that insecure reaction at all. He counterpoints while following his
own trajectory, and it always works.

[[

Marc Ribot, Chad Taylor and Henry Grimes at The Village Vanguard

Ribot, Grimes and Taylor played a week at The Village Vanguard that year. Reviewing
the opening set for _The New York Times, _I called it “a rough astonishment, restless
and altogether riveting.” (The first set of the second night was broadcast by WBGO.)
Pi Recordings released an album culled from the run.

[[

Grimes published a book of poems he’d written during his time off the scene, calling
it _Signs Along the Road_.

In a 2012 interview with _For Bass Players Only_, he reflected on his period of 
exile.

“I never gave up on music, not for a minute,” he said. “You could say I was absent
for a long time, but I always believed I would be back one day. I just couldn’t 
see the way to get there, but I knew it would happen.”

![Henry Grimes at the Vision Collaborations Festival, 14th Street Y, March 03, 2010.](
https://i0.wp.com/www.wbgo.org/sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/202004/Henry_Grimes_by_Peter_Gannushkin-
01.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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