Christopher Dean Sullivan

Biography

Christopher Dean Sullivan is a double bassist who calls himself a "Jazz Griot." Born in Chicago and raised in Pittsburgh, he has built a long career as a sideman and leader, with credits alongside Archie Shepp, Sheila Jordan, Yusef Lateef, Odean Pope, Vanessa Rubin, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Jordan and Carl Grubbs. Critics have tied his bluesy, note-bending sound to Slam Stewart and Ray Brown. On record he is closely linked with pianist and electronic musician Bob Gluck.

He played in Gluck's drummerless trio with soprano saxophonist Joe Giardullo on Something Quiet (FMR, 2011), and co-produced Infinite Spirit: Revisiting Music of the Mwandishi Band (FMR, 2016), a tribute to Herbie Hancock's early-1970s sextet with Mwandishi veterans Eddie Henderson and Billy Hart. He arranged one track on that album and contributed his own piece, "Spirit Unleashed." He leads the Christopher Dean Sullivan Quartet, with pianist-vocalist Mala Waldron, vibraphonist Jay Hoggard and drummer Bobby Sanabria, and the Jazz Journey Quartet with vocalist Angel Rose. He also hosts the CDS Paradigm podcast and works with the Jazz & Poetry Choir Collective.

His list of venues includes the Newburgh Jazz Series and the Jazz in the Valley festival in New York. In Newburgh he played bass in Heleen Schuttevaêr's Holland Tunnel Jazz Quartet for the gallery's 25th anniversary in 2022, and again at the Final Blast closing party in 2023.

Practice. Upright bass; straight-ahead and blues-rooted jazz, post-bop and exploratory/electro-acoustic settings (with Bob Gluck); also jazz-and-poetry work.