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Jazz Articles about Lisa Ullen
Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman, Anna Lund: Space
by John Sharpe
Although pianist Lisa Ullén, bassist Elsa Bergman and drummer Anna Lund supply a formidable bottom end to the surging horn polyphony of Anna Högberg's Attack, on Space they find an alternative means to convey emotion and rapport through collective improvisation. Across five studio tracks, the Swedish threesome practices an egalitarian creed which does not privilege any one instrument over another. It is not an unfamiliar setting. Ullén and Bergman featured in a co-operative which adopted a similar approach on Festen ...
read moreAnna Hogberg Attack: lena
by John Sharpe
It is a well known gambit to start an album with one of its strongest tracks. But it must have been a difficult choice for Swedish band leader and saxophonist Anna Högberg when programming her group Attack's second release. That she chose Pappa Kom Hem," which opens with a sustained stentorian bellow from tenor saxophonist Elin Forkelid, leading to a cataclysmic free for all, announces that this is an uncompromising outfit. But the way the cut ends with the emergence ...
read moreAnna Högberg Attack: lena
by Samuel Stroup
There are moments of lena, the sophomore release from Swedish group Attack, which feel as though the ensemble is as much punk band as it is jazz sextet. Under the leadership of alto saxophonist Anna Högberg, the group plays loud and fast free jazz which is as stylish as it is raucous. Even the monochrome album art and absence of capitalized song titles reflect the album's mood, energetic and effortless. lena's six Högberg-penned tracks revisit the style of ...
read moreLisa Ullen: Piano Works
by Karl Ackermann
Lisa Ullén is best known for her work with Swiss bassist Nina de Heney, including Carve (2009), Look Right (2013)--both on LJ Records--and Quarrtsiluni (Lamour Records, 2016). Ullén was born in South Korea but raised in Sweden and graduated from the Royal Musical Academy in Stockholm where she studied classical piano. With well over a dozen recordings as a leader/co-leader, Ullén has long been an uncompromisingly dedicated artist whose penchant for newly invented, modern creative music has set her apart ...
read moreLisa Ullén: Piano Works
by John Sharpe
Pianist Lisa Ullén has followed her muse big time with Piano Works, a three-CD box-set of unaccompanied pieces, recorded in 2017. A native of South Korea, Ullén grew up and lives in Sweden, where most of her activity remains centered. She may be best known for her work on Anna Högberg's Attack (Omlott, 2016) and the collective foursome Festen (Clean Feed, 2016), but her discography goes back to 2006 with the first of several dates for her Quartet, which includes ...
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