Mark London Sims was born in San Bernardino, California. Self-taught, he picked up the guitar at age 11 and piano at 14. By 18 his love for music, and new found passion, the bass, would outweigh his gifts for athletics and Physics for he would go on to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Music Composition from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Mark then attended graduate school at California Institute of the Arts. There he found African music under the tutelage of Ghanaians Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo in addition to his jazz studies with Charlie Haden and James Newton. Mark graduated at the top of his class winning the prestigious President's Award.
Based in Los Angeles, Mark enjoys an exhilirating career as a world music bassist/composer/poet. He has performed throughout North America, Europe and China with the Watts Prophets (for whom he was the Musical Director), Don Cherry, Stevie Wonder, Ralph McDonald, Albert 'Tootie' Heath, Robert Greenidge, The Mighty Sparrow, L. Shankar, Joe Higgs, ...etc.
Mark has also appeared on over 50 recordings. He has written, recorded and produced two albums under his name, 'Strange Groove Picnic' and 'Limited Expression.' Several others bear his original compositions. One such record, 'Dark', was honored as one of Billboard Magazine's the top 30 Classic Progressive Music recordings of the 20th Century.
Mark is happy to share his knowledge with others. He has conducted several jazz and African music artist-in-residence workshops at University of Wisconsin, Platteville, University of Nebraska, University of Nevada, Reno, and Mississippi Valley State University to name a few. He has also held his 'Art of Sound Composition' workshop at the UCLA/Hammer museum as well as in South Central Los Angeles. He currently teaches piano, bass, guitar and drums at the
Burbank Music Academy.
"Love Music: Music Theory as Poetry" was recently published. It has over 70 poems by Mark London Sims including two of his award-winning poems, 'Return to She' and 'Up and Down'.
email: lbumusic@yahoo.com
Read more...