Darek Oles

Darek Oles (Oleszkiewicz) was born Feb. 20, 1963, in Wroclaw, Poland. At the age of 5, Oles began his music education at the State Music School in Wroclaw. Piano was his first instrument, but he later played guitar and electric bass, and at 18 switched to acoustic bass. While in his teens, he played with amateur groups, evolving in styles from rock, blues and jazz-rock to straight-ahead jazz. In the early 1980s, Oles participated in jazz festivals and national competitions for young musicians. In 1983, he was the most awarded musician at the Jazz Juniors in Cracow, winning first prize for jazz composition, first individual prize and second prize in the jazz combo category. Later that year, Oles was invited by Jan Ptaszyn Wroblewski, a jazz legend in Poland, to join the saxophonist’s quartet on tour.

In the following five years, Oles worked steadily with some of the top jazz bands in the country, including the Zbigniew Namyslowski Quartet, Tomasz Szukalski Quartet, Henryk Majewski Quintet, Wojciech Karolak Trio, Andrzej Jagodzinski Trio and Jan Ptaszyn Wroblewski Quartet. With those groups he recorded for Polish Jazz, Polskie Nagrania and East Wind, as well as for radio and television in Poland and abroad. He toured extensively in Poland, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Cuba and Mexico, and performed at major festivals, concerts and jazz club venues.

In 1988, Oles arrived in Los Angeles with a plan to broaden his musical horizons. A year later, he received a full scholarship from California Institute of the Arts and began studies with legendary bassist Charlie Haden. After graduation in 1992, he accepted a teaching position at CalArts, where he has conducted jazz ensembles and taught bass ever since. Since 2002, Oles has been a jazz faculty member at the University of California, Irvine.

Alongside teaching, Oles has been active as a performer and is considered one of the most sought-after bass players on the West Coast. Known by the American nickname “Oles,” he has performed and recorded with leading jazz artists including Brad Mehldau, Billy Higgins, Pat Metheny, Joe Lovano, Eddie Henderson, Charles Lloyd, John Abercrombie, Bennie Maupin, Lee Konitz, Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua, Bennie Wallace, Victor Lewis, Harvey Mason, Dave Grusin, Art Farmer, Horace Silver, Alice Coltrane, Ravi Coltrane, James Newton, Arthur Blythe, Lew Tabackin, Steve Kuhn, Gary Smulyan, Ronnie Cuber, Billy Hart, Kevin Hays, Munyungo Jackson, Steve Hass, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Marian McPartland, Janis Siegel, Bob Brookmeyer, Curtis Fuller, Roy McCurdy, Tom Harrell, Larry Goldings, Bill Stewart, Chris Potter, Kei Akagi, Billy Childs, Bob Sheppard, Joe LaBarbera, Bill Cunliffe, Patrice Rushen, Bennie Golson, Piotr Baron, Teri Lyne Carrington, Buddy DeFranco, Terry Gibbs, Anthony Wilson Nonet and the Los Angeles Jazz Quartet.

With these and many other artists, Oles has recorded about 100 albums and performed hundreds of concerts throughout America, Europe and Asia. Several of those recordings were nominated for Grammy Awards.

In 2003, Oles was nominated for a Fryderyk Award in Poland in the category of Jazz Musician of the Year.

His first recording project as a leader, Like a Dream with Brad Mehldau and Bennie Maupin, was released by Cryptogramophone Records in 2004 and received international critical acclaim. In 2005, Oles was voted Best Acoustic Bassist in the Jazz Top readers poll in Jazz Forum European Magazine.