Carlo Mombelli

BIO

Carlo Mombelli is a composer, bassist and educator from South Africa.

Carlo’s music has been described in the press as:

‘Once in a while an artist comes along who produces music unlike anything you've heard. Avant-garde bass-focused jazz composition has rarely sounded so gorgeous.
Bass Player Magazine (USA)

‘His music is unusually and unexpectedly fresh.’ - Paris Jazz Man Magazine, (FRANCE)

Hauntingly beautiful
BBC radio - London

Disconcertingly beautiful.
THE JAZZ TIMES (USA)

His music sits on the cusp of sanity, where madness and brilliance share space, where true art resides.
The Sunday Independent

Carlo Mombelli is nothing short of a national treasure – you cannot argue with the depth, passion and inventiveness of his music.
The Mail and Guardian.

Bassist Carlo Mombelli is something of a sage figure. He remains one of the most restlessly creative forces in South African jazz.
By Dan Bilawsky (New York) All about JAZZ
February 20, 2019

Shortened Biography
In his 40-year career as a bass player, band leader and composer, the South African Carlo Mombelli currently living in Johannesburg has bridged gaps between genres, musicians and the audiences.

Concerts
In 2021 the MET, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York presented Carlo performing his music together with the Grammy award-winning New York String Quartet ‘Ethel’.

A self-taught musician, he has recorded and performed at many respected music festivals and clubs, including:
the Roma Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival,
the Stockholm Jazz Festival,
the German Moers Festival,
The Leipziger Jazztage,
The BimHuis in Amsterdam,
The Berliner Philharmonie,
‘On the Edge of Wrong’ festival in Norway,
the Banlieues Bleues festival in Paris,
Cape Town International Jazz festival,
Festival Mundial in the Netherlands,
the JazzWerkstadt in Bern, Switzerland,
& ‘Rio Loco’ festival in Toulouse France, to name a few,

with amongst others, Mick Goodrick, Charlie Mariano, Konstantin Wecker, Jeroen van Vliet, Malcolm Braff, Jorge Rossy, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Dejan Terzic, Wolfgang Haffner, Francois Jeanneau, Carine Bonnefoy, Barbara Dennerlein, Samual Blaser, Frodo Nymo, Håkon Mjåset Johansen, Kyle Shepherd & Adrian Mears.

He has also recorded for Enja Records with Egberto Gismonti as well as with Lee Konitz, and has contributed music and played on the 1989 tribute for Jaco Pastorius, ‘Basstorius’, that also features the bassists Mathew Garrison and Carles Benavent.

Back home in South Africa he has performed and worked with Duke Makazi, Ray Phiri, Barney Rachabane, Lionel Pillay, Hotep Galeta, Afrika Mhkize, Sydney Mnisi, Mbuso Khoza, Ayanda Sikade, Themba Mkhize, Khaya Mlahlangu, Vuma Levin, Jono Sweetman, JB Arthur, Nduduzo Makhathini and Thandi Ntuli, to name a few.

He can also be heard as a bassist on many South African recordings with amongst others, Marcus Wyatt, Zim Ngqawana, Tlale Makhene, Johnny Fourie, Simphiwe Dana, Kyle Shepherd, Sibongile Khumalo, & Miriam Makeba.

In 2018 the Swiss/Italian 15 piece ‘Euregio’ Large Ensemble spent the year performing Carlo’s music at festivals around Europe.

Ballets, films and Commissions
Besides the many ballets that have been choreographed to his music with performances around the world, from Johannesburg to Amsterdam, Denmark and the Ramallah Dance festival, he has also composed music for more than 14 documentaries and animations (winning an award at the Hiaff Animation festival in Tokyo 2005) and film, and have been shown at all the major art film festivals from New York’s Museum of Modern Art MOMA, to Berlin, London, Toronto as well as the Sundance Film festival.

In addition to his over 100 recorded compositions and performances with his own projects, his composition commissions include music for a mobile game for the London gaming company ‘The Secret Police’, commissions for Zim Ngqawana’s 50 piece Zimphony Ourchestra, (which Mombelli also conducted with Zim), commissions for the ‘Stockholm Saxophone Quartet’, and his piano music for the art film Exquisite Corps by Jonah Sack presented at the New York Jewish Museum.

Lutherie Urbaine
From 2007 to 2009 Jean-Louis Mechali, a composer, musician and director
of the Paris-based company ‘Lutherie Urbaine’, asked Carlo to conduct
weekly workshops in Soweto and Mamelodi teaching children and youths
to play his music on instruments built on site from recycled material. The filmmaker Sylvie Coulon documented the project in a film called ‘Sharp Sharp’.
Carlo also worked on the project with the company in Paris.

Books
Pulses in the Centre of Silence – Composition Scores and Artistry Concepts’ is published by Real African Publishing.
Mombelli’s Intergallactic Bass Book is published by Real African Publishers and Internationally by Hal Leonard.

Teaching
Carlo, a self-taught musician, has been involved in music education for many years. Starting in 1998 he held a teaching post at the Richard-Strauss Conservatoire in Munich, Germany. Since then he has taught and run ensembles at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and bi-annually at the Jazz Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland. In 2015, he led the DKSJ-all-star-project with 13 Masters students studying jazz in Switzerland.

Mombelli is a NRF Rated Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Carlo’s new CD ‘LULLABY FOR PLANET EARTH’ with Wolfgang Muthspiel and Jorge Rossy was released in September 2022 on the CYH Swiss Label