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Mats/Morgan Band

Mats/Morgan Band (formerly Hot Rats and Zappsteetoot) is a band that features Morgan Ågren and Mats Öberg. Morgan is a drummer and composer and Mats is a keyboard player and composer. The band is a showcase for their virtuosic skills on their respective instruments as well as their compositional skills. Their music is difficult to categorize, containing elements of jazz, electronic music, waltz, dance music, avant garde/free jazz, techno, rock, progressive and modern classical music.

Morgan Ågren has been a drummer since age four. Born in Umeå, Sweden, Ågren was spotted as an outstanding talent at a young age as he began performing publicly at age seven, and eventually joined forces with keyboardist Mats Öberg in 1981. Mats has been blind since birth.

They later formed Zappsteetoot together in 1984, a band internationally known for performing Frank Zappa's music. In 1988, Ågren and Öberg were invited by Zappa to do a guest performance at his Stockholm performance. Frank Zappa then invited them to the United States to partake in several projects, including the 1991 Zappa's Universe shows in New York, which Zappa was already too ill to attend, as well as a sold out New York performance of Zappa's classical program at Lincoln Centers Great Performers Series at Avery Fisher Hall.

Morgan Ågren also collaborated with the guitarist of Swedish experimental metal band Meshuggah, Fredrik Thordendal, on the album Sol Niger Within, which was released in 1997.


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Play This!

Mats Öberg Trio - Hermeto's Cheese (Live at Nyhetsmorgon)

Read "Mats Öberg Trio - Hermeto's Cheese (Live at Nyhetsmorgon)" reviewed by Mike Jacobs


Swedish phenom Mats Öberg is primarily known for his Zappa-esque keyboard work as part of the Mats/ Morgan Band (his longtime duo-led group with drummer Morgan Agren). In more recent years, Öberg has taken some solo piano and piano trio-oriented musical departures--the latter taking him more squarely into jazz territory. Witness the Mats Oberg Trio's “Hermeto's Cheese," with all those iconoclastic influences funneled into what might be termed as a 'Dave Brubeck 5/8 on steroids.' ...

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Play This!

Mats/Morgan Band: Paltsug

Read "Mats/Morgan Band: Paltsug" reviewed by Mike Jacobs


The closer from a 2020 radio live stream broadcast for Swedish Radio Stockholm--included in the duo's 40th Anniversary Box Set (Morgan Records, 2021)--keyboardist Mats Oberg and drummer Morgan Agren give a glimpse of the talents that famously astonished one Frank Zappa nearly four decades ago. ...

1
Album Review

Mats/Morgan: Schack Tati

Read "Schack Tati" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi


Raccontano le cronache che gli svedesi Mats Oberg (tastierista) e Morgan Agren (batterista) suonano insieme dall'età rispettivamente di 10 e 14 anni. Si direbbe un sodalizio di acciaio che si fonda su una fraterna amicizia e su un amore smisurato per Frank Zappa che fu agli inizi degli anni Ottanta anche loro mentore. Fini compositori e dotati di una tecnica fuori dal comune hanno sfornato in oltre trent'anni di carriera una decina di dischi tra release ufficiali, live ...

2
Album Review

Mats/Morgan Band: Live

Read "Live" reviewed by Dave Wayne


Keyboardist Mats Öberg and drummer Morgen Ågren--known as much for their musical brilliance as they are for their devotion to the music of Frank Zappa--are at their hyperactive best on this remastered recording from Stockholm's Club Fasching in 1999. Six pieces by Ågren and five by Öberg comprise this all-original set that shows quite a bit more variety and showmanship than might be expected from a pair of former child prodigies immersed in the world of strange and difficult music.

153
Album Review

Mats/Morgan Band: Live

Read "Live" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


In their teens, drummer Morgan Ågren and keyboardist Mats Öberg were invited to perform with Frank Zappa and, as the story goes, the Swedish duo formed this phenomenal ensemble that exercised a jaw-dropping mode of execution within the progressive-rock schema, amid some Zappa and jazz-centric influences. Revered for its otherworldly approach to the genre and superior technical faculties, Mats/Morgan Band is known for its exhilarating live performances and manifold approach to composition. Agren is an in-demand session artist, ...

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Album Review

Mats/Morgan Band: Thanks For Flying With Us

Read "Thanks For Flying With Us" reviewed by Trevor MacLaren


The Mats/Morgan band is centered around child prodigies Mats Oberg and Morgan Ägren, who worship at that altar of American composer and cult icon Frank Zappa. Oberg, who by the age of three was singing, playing keyboards, and listening to Miles Davis, would later hone a palette that would include progressive rock and funk. Ägren is a percussionist who began at age four with a penchant for Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich. They met and started their collaboration in 1981 ...

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Music Industry

Cuneiform: Sao Paulo Underground; Mats/Morgan Band

Cuneiform: Sao Paulo Underground; Mats/Morgan Band

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Sao Paulo Underground—Tres Cabecas Loucuras (Cuneiform, 2011) This is a very interesting group that combines jazz composition and improvisation with electronics and effects to create an intoxicating and exotic blend of music. Featuring Rob Mazurek on cornet and electronics, Mauricio Takara on drums and electronics, Guilherme Granado on keyboards, electronics and samplers, Richard Ribeiro on drums as well as a number of special guests. The music on this album deftly mixes influences: contemporary Brazilian music, electronics and spiritual jazz like ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Schack Tati

Cuneiform Records
2014

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Live

Cuneiform Records
2011

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The Music Or The...

Cuneiform Records
2010

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Heat Beats Live /...

Cuneiform Records
2008

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Thanks For Flying...

Cuneiform Records
2005

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Frank Zappa
guitar, electric

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