Jazz Articles about Jon Balke

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Jon Balke: Siwan

by John Kelman
June 27, 2009

A banner year for ECM in many respects, 2009 has seen two specific releases that, in their intrepid conceptual cross-pollination, stand poised as contemporary masterpieces. One is composer/sound sculptor Ambrose Field's exploration of 15th Century composer Guillame Dufay's music with tenor John Potter on the forward-thinking Being Dufay (ECM, 2009); the other is Norwegian keyboardist/composer Jon Balke's Siwan. Being Dufay turned music from a European classical environs ultra-modernistic, even for this 21st Century. Balke takes music from Middle ...

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Jon Balke: Siwan

by C. Michael Bailey
June 23, 2009

The competent and successful musico-cultural eutection promoted by ECM founder Manfred Eicher since the release of Jan Garbarek/Hilliard Ensemble's Officium (ECM, 1993) takes another quantum step with keyboardist Jon Balke's imaginative and far reaching Siwan. Balke enters a realm of cross-cultural pollination evolving from Officium, through that same collaboration's expanded vision on Mnemosyne (ECM, 1999) to John Potter's excellent Dowland Project outings: Care-Charming Sleep (ECM, 2001) and Romaria (ECM, 2006).

The focus of Siwan is not one of strict musical ...

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Jon Balke: Book of Velocities

by Chris May
May 10, 2008

On paper, Norwegian pianist Jon Balke's first solo album reads like challenging stuff: a collection of eighteen short improvisations, grouped into five sub-sections (four “chapters" and an “epilogue"), and concerned as much with the velocities with which the piano's strings can be struck--and how they can be struck--as with thematic or harmonic development. Something for fellow pianists to marvel at and the general listener to struggle with.

In actuality, Book Of Velocities is an accessible and rewarding album, ...

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Jon Balke: Book Of Velocities

by Budd Kopman
April 24, 2008

As time goes on, the ECM label continues to stretch the meaning of the word jazz, allowing it to encompass almost any kind of music that allows for improvisation or sounds like it does. With Book Of Velocities, pianist/composer/band leader Jon Balke connects with various worlds: of the piano as a physical entity that can produce sound in many different ways; of the creative process as it feeds back on itself through time; of effecting control over ...

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Jon Balke: Book of Velocities

by John Kelman
April 8, 2008

Over the course of three decades Jon Balke has, without any particular muss or fuss, emerged not only as one of Norway's finest pianists in a sphere of jazz of the largest possible definition, but one of its most influential. From his early days with bassist Arild Anderson and drummer Jon Christensen's Masqualero, Balke's writing and playing transcended the group's open-ended take on Miles Davis' mid-1960s free-bop to include musical and cultural markers from farther abroad. Recent albums like the ...

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Jon Balke: Book of Velocities

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 21, 2008

Esponente di primo piano della Free Improvised Music europea, il pianista Jon Balke lascia per il momento la guida della Magnetic North Orchestra e dell'ensemble Batagraf, per dedicarsi pienamente al suo strumento. E' singolare ma l'eclettico artista norvegese debutta solo ora, all'età di 52 anni, con un lavoro in piano solo, in un percorso tanto lirico quanto avventuroso e pregnante, che si snoda attraverso quattro capitoli ed un epilogo, per complessivi 19 brani. La libera improvvisazione è sovrana ma i ...

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Miki N'Doye: Tuki

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 12, 2007

Momodou “Miki” N’Doye è un percussionista originario del Gambia, che - “scoperto” in patria dal musicista norvegese Helge Lien - vive e lavora ormai da trent’anni in Norvegia. Qui ha collezionato numerose collaborazioni (nel 1984 ha suonato con Don Cherry e Ed Blackwell), influenzando molti musicisti nordici con la sua cultura africana ed esordendo con l’etichetta ECM già nel 1990 in un album di Jon Balke. E proprio il pianista e tastierista norvegese è qui tra i protagonisti di questo ...