Jazz Articles about Bruno Raberg

Bruno Raberg: Chrysalis

by Jerry D'Souza
December 13, 2004

There is truth in clich's, so pardon this one. The music that Bruno Rïberg creates on Chrysalis is a tone poem. Each verse casts a hue bathed in warm colours. Adding to the ode are the players who daub and splash, coat and swipe and emphasize the dimension. What results is music that captivates with its immediacy, yet is deep enough to create a spell that will linger in the mind.

If composition is the key to success ...

Bruno Raberg: Chrysalis

by John Kelman
December 1, 2004

On Ascensio , bassist Bruno Råberg's previous record, the Swedish ex-pat now living in Boston and working as a professor at the Berklee College of Music delivered a quartet album that combined the rich groove of Dave Holland with the harmonic openness of Dave Douglas' Magic Triangle quartet. Reconvening the same group--trumpeter Phil Grenadier, saxophonist Allan Chase and drummer Marcello Pellitteri--Råberg fleshes things out to a nonet including guitarist Mick Goodrick. Goodrick, a Boston legend whose influential style has helped ...

Bruno R: Ascensio

by Dan McClenaghan
July 25, 2003

The bottom end is a big presence on Bruno Råberg's Ascensio, fitting for a bassist-led quartet... a solid, emphatic heartbeat for the rest of the band to contend with. Bassist Bruno Råberg, the Swedish-born Berklee educator, incorporated a foundation of Scandinavian folk tunes in his previous Orbis outing, Presence ; as he does here. Shifting meters, unusual time signatures, a muscular rhythmic pulse behind the front line horns, combined with a drummer (Marcello Pelitteri) who divides the spaces ...

Bruno R: Ascensio

by Jerry D'Souza
July 25, 2003

Bruno Råberg’s third album as leader is firmly concerned with form. The bassist has played in bands of different stylistic pursuits, like Orange Then Blue, which threw everything from free form to mainstream jazz into the stewing pot; and with Eje Thelin, whose band swiped the caboodle from dixieland to free jazz. Here Råberg is contained. He prefers structure to intuitive freedom. While he does not completely tighten the leash, this would have been a more interesting recording had the ...

Bruno Raberg: Presence

by Glenn Astarita
September 1, 2000

Bassist Bruno Raberg continues to intertwine Scandinavian folk themes with modern jazz style dialogue and invention on compositions such as “Runestones” and elsewhere on this newly released project titled, Presence. Yet, the bassist along with multi-reedman Ole Mathisen and drummer Marcello Pellitteri perform a series of imaginative and at times meditative pieces while maintaining a noticeable degree of solidarity, warmth and depth. Throughout, the listener is treated to Mathisen’s airy choruses, Raberg’s booming yet disciplined multifunctional bass lines and Pellitteri’s ...

Bruno Raberg: Orbis

by Glenn Astarita
August 1, 2000

Swedish born jazz bassist/educator Bruno Raberg displays a fine compositional pen on his 1998 release titled Orbis. With sympathetic support from legendary drummer Bob Moses, pianist Tim Ray, and saxophonist Ole Mathisen, the bassist fuses Scandinavian folk with 90’s style modern jazz-funk rhythms and melodically tinged themes on the albums opener, “Runes”. Throughout, Bob Moses is a master at pushing and prodding the soloists without becoming obtrusive or distracting while Raberg is the traffic cop as he directs the band ...

Bruno Raberg: Orbis

by Paula Edelstein
September 1, 1999

One of Sweden's most innovative bassists, Bruno Raberg, serves up exciting references to the folk music of Scandinavia with the assistance of drum legend Bob Moses, pianist extraordinaire Tim Ray and sax master Ole Mathisen on this 1998 release titled Orbis. This exciting coexistence of jazz, funk and world music is relayed on nine compositions written by Bruno Raberg, an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music. Raberg finds a kindred melodic and rhythmic spirit in Ole Mathisen on “Forest ...