Articles
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Hans Ulrik: Still Searching
by Robin Arends
It is not easy to classify Danish saxophonist Hans Ulrik. He dedicates himself as easily to movie soundtracks and jingles as to an album of Latin or Christmas music. At the same time it is not difficult to recognize Ulrik's dreamy, Nordic voice. Like other European jazz musicians Ulrik started his career in the United States. While studying in Berklee in the mid 1980's he built up a network of jazz musicians and later on, back in Denmark, made good ...
read moreHans Ulrik's Jazz & Mambo: Danish Standards
by Derek Taylor
Riffing on riddles. Such seems to be the intent of Danish saxophonist Hans Ulrik’s new release on the Stunt label. The name he coins for his ensemble is Jazz & Mambo, but the program appears to be a clutch of reworked Danish pop and folk songs. The gist of the band seems jazz oriented; both in instrumentation and overall improvisatory approach, yet two of the program’s pieces are “Jazz Interludes” suggesting that the remainder of the set isn’t identified as ...
read moreHans Ulrik/Steve Swallow/Jonas Johansen: Trio
by Elliott Simon
On the aptly (if unimaginatively) named Trio, American electric bassist Steve Swallow joins forces with two Danish musicians: sax player Hans Ulrik and drummer Jonas Johansen. At every turn, Swallow demonstrates why he is the premiere electric jazz bassist of the last two decades. When his trademark 5-string finds the groove that makes the trio equal partners, Ulrik and Johansen endeavor to keep up with Swallow's power and inventiveness. They succeed more often than not, resulting in a highly charged ...
read moreUlrik / Swallow / Johansen: Trio
by Derek Taylor
The cursory documentation included with this disc doesn’t offer much as to the origins of this trio. On the surface they have the suspicious makings of a pick-up tour band, but the tight confluence of the music tells a different story. Steve Swallow’s surname will likely garner the greatest degree of familiarity, at least in the eyes American listeners. But from the opening notes of the curiously titled “Self Exiting Circuit” it’s clear that the two Danes who round out ...
read moreHans Ulrik: Jazz & Latin Beats
by Jack Bowers
Jazz & Latin Beats is a follow–up to Copenhagen–born saxophonist Hans Ulrik’s Jazz and Mambo, which won a Danish Grammy Award as “Jazz Album of the Year” in 1998. This is another strong outing, even though the “Latin beats” are always subordinated to the Jazz and in some cases (“Gone with the Wind,” “The Man I Love,” “Sad Young Men”) aren’t even present. Ulrik claims John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins as his principal role models, and the Rollins influence is ...
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