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Ingebrigt Håker Flaten
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b. 1971, Oppdal) – studied Jazz at the Music Consevatory in Trondheim, Norway (1992-1995) under the tutelage of bassplayer Odd Magne Gridseth.When one listens to the great bassists in modern jazz history, a striking thing (though it may not be immediately arrived at) is that greatness is reached through open-mindedness and diversity. William Parker, Malachi Favors Maghostut, Peter Kowald, Wilbur Ware, Bertram Turetsky, Buell Neidlinger – all of these bass players have embraced a lifestyle of playing all sorts of music and the breadth of each musicians’ technique is a testament to those experiences. Norwegian bassist and composer Ingebrigt Håker Flaten is also a musician whose experience is both geographical and aesthetic. While the fertile Scandinavian new jazz scene offered a vast amount of opportunities to work in different bands with musicians whose concepts are as individual as the grains in a reed, Flaten has found home and on-the-bandstand education in places as far flung as Chicago and his current residence Austin, Texas.A muscular player whose tone and attack run the gamut from Paul Chambers to Buschi Niebergall, his sense of both openness and control serves ensembles as diverse as The Thing, Free Fall, Atomic, Scorch Trio and the Kornstad/Håker Flaten Duo. In addition to his own Chicago Sextet and Austin-centric Young Mothers, Flaten has also recorded and performed with Frode Gjerstad, Dave Rempis, Bobby Bradford, the AALY Trio, Ken Vandermark, Stephen Gauci, Tony Malaby, Daniel Levin, Dennis Gonzalez and numerous others. Flaten studied at the Conservatory in Trondheim (1992-1995), turning professional shortly afterward, yet his hunger to play in new situations with new musicians – schooled or amateur, frequently recorded or just starting out – puts him in a rare class, that of a truly broad-minded artist. That mettle has served him well, living and developing the music under his own steam and drawing from influences as diverse as Derek Bailey, George Russell, Chris McGregor, filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, contemporary pop melody and gritty punk music as well as everyday sights and sounds.There is a calmness and self-assuredness that imbues all great artists, in that the diversity of their work comes with very little ego. Flaten’s artistry is often in collective, leaderless ensembles and in fact, following a decade of professional musicianship it wasn’t until 2004 that his leader-debut was released – Quintet (Jazzland, followed in 2008 by The Year of the Boar, and a Sextet recording is upcoming).
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Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr: Breezy

by Rob Garratt
When news of Jaimie Branch's passing broke in 2022, there was an understandably huge outpouring of tributes from different corners of the jazz community. While an eternal punk rocker at heart, Branch was also a distinctly millennial musician, and a fitting figurehead for the recent wave of borderless improvised music that came out of Chicago's International Anthem label that she called home. For all the deliberately ragged edges, Branch's vision was clear, her delivery fierce, and her inclusive message inarguable. ...
Continue ReadingSchick, Håker Flaten, Steidle: The Cliffhanger Session

by Mark Corroto
For listeners who enjoy when an artist or group zig when we expect them to zag, I give you The Cliffhanger Session. The abrupt change of direction for Ignaz Schick, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Oliver Steidle is the switch from electro-acoustic energy noise to an all-acoustic performance. The German-born musicians, Schick and Steidle, created ILOG, an all-out turntable, percussion, and sampling onslaught of improvised mayhem. Their loops and samples are the equivalent of a schizophrenic DJ tuned to an alien ...
Continue ReadingPandemic Solution: Afterdog

by Troy Dostert
One hopes there will soon come a time in which the memories of the Covid crisis will fade conclusively, but until then its legacy seems likely to linger. As further evidence we have the ensemble Pandemic Solution, a trio originally assembled by pianist Norvald Dahl during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. Although one might wish for an alternative name for the group--and the same goes for the inscrutable title of the release, Afterdog--there is no disputing the ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado The Bridge: Beyond The Margins

by John Sharpe
The Bridge may be one of the most potent all round units assembled by Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado. That is saying something considering his previous alliances with collaborators as varied as multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, trumpeter Peter Evans, trombonist Jeb Bishop and drummer Chris Corsano. This time out his partners read like an extract from an international free jazz who's who: German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, American drummer Gerry Hemingway and Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. Beyond ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado: Beyond The Margins

by Troy Dostert
The aptly titled Beyond the Margins is just the latest entry in tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's burgeoning catalog, and it is certainly further proof that Amado is among the most exciting and accomplished practitioners of free music in the jazz world. Each new release seems to allow him to hone his craft with ever-greater precision, and with an even wider range of emotional resonances. And with a line-up of free jazz veterans that includes pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, bassist Ingebrigt ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Amado / The Bridge: Beyond The Margins

by Mark Corroto
You might think saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's quartet The Bridge is an allusion to Sonny Rollins' performing and recording hiatus between 1959 and 1961. One spent practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge which links Manhattan and Brooklyn. Besides the name, Amado's previous release, Refraction Solo Live At Church Of The Holy Ghost (Trost, 2022), his first unaccompanied recording, draws inspiration from Rollins' sound and references some of the great man's music. More likely, Amado's bridge is the span linking the ...
Continue ReadingGard Nilssen's Supersonic Orchestra: Family

by Mark Corroto
Why can't all music be supersonic? That does not mean supersonic as in a speed exceeding that of sound, but sound that is sonically superlative. Drummer, composer, and bandleader Gard Nilssen's music is seemingly always sonically superb. His 17-piece Supersonic Orchestra was captured in 2022 at the Mondriaan Jazz Festival in Den Haag, Netherlands, for Family, his follow-up to If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours (Odin 2020). The Supersonic Orchestra is made up of seven saxophones ...
Continue ReadingJoe McPhee and Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten - Blue Chicago Blues (Not Two, 2010)

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Music and More by Tim Niland
Joe McPhee has played with a number of European improvisers during his long and distinguished career, and the rapport he strikes with bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten is immediate and compelling. McPhee plays alto saxophone while Haker-Flaten plays both bowed and plucked bass. The range of sounds and textures that that are able to get some such few raw materials is very impressive, such as on Cerulean Mood Swing" where McPhee's anguished Albert Ayler inspired saxophone cries out against the solidity of ...
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Bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten Experimental Jazz with a Norwegian Accent

Source:
Michael Ricci
Avant-garde jazz has almost always had its sacramental side. Theres a reason for the devotion that some listeners bring to the mid-1960s music of John Coltrane.
Or to the output of his fellow saxophonist Albert Ayler. The spirituality in these performances wasn't subtext or suggestion; it radiated out from a fervent core.
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, an astute Norwegian bassist, has experience with the fiery side of free improvisation: hes among the most prolific figures on the European experimental scene. His ...
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“With the deep, aggresive double bass of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten opening up the album with a sound that makes some bassists sound positively puny by comparison……” – Jazzwise Magazine “The Nordic bassist, exiled for a while in Austin, shows with this LP that in addition to being one of the best with the four strings at present, he is also a remarkable composer and arranger.” – Tomajazz “Delivered with a punk intensity you rarely hear any more, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten held this rollercoaster of a band together, impressing even more later in the set when he switched to electric bass.” – Jazzwise Magazine “…appreciate the sheer breadth of Mr
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