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Arild Andersen/Paolo Vinaccia/Tommy Smith: In-House Science

By Karl Ackermann

Arild Andersen's superb trio with tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith and drummer Paolo Vinaccia had previously released two ECM albums, Live at Belleville (2008), and Mira (2014). Smith and Andersen joined the saxophonist's frequent collaborators, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra for Celebration (2015) which included “Independency, Pt. 4" from Belleville. In-House Science is the second live album from the trio.Andersen's long career began in the late 1960s jumping right to well established artists such as George Russell, Don Cherry, ...

Vossa Jazz 2015

By Henning Bolte

VOSSA JAZZ Voss March 28 -29, 2015 Vossa Jazz, founded in 1973, an annual three-day event with a great variety of groups and acts, is a highly prestigious jazz festival in Norway. Thanks especially to its commissions and awards, it has an important national and international function. In 1983 the festival became the first in Europe to start assigning commission work. After more than 30 years the series has become an impressive list including ...

Arild Andersen / Paolo Vinaccia / Tommy Smith: Mira

By John Kelman

The debut of Arild Andersen's now longstanding trio with Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith and Italian expat drummer Paolo Vinaccia on Live at Belleville (ECM, 2008) came as no small surprise, even to those familiar with the Norwegian bassist's work on the label--dating right back to its inception on Jan Garbarek's classic Afric Pepperbird (ECM, 1971), as well as with his own fine triptych of more accessible early albums, recently collected on Green Into Blue--Early Quartets (ECM, 2010). Andersen ...

Arild Andersen: Celebration

By John Kelman

Arild Andersen Celebration ECM Records 2012 With all the activities surrounding the 40th anniversary of ECM Records in 2009--from a three-day festival-within-a-festival at that year's Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim, Germany, and the budget-priced Touchstone Series reissue of forty essential ECM titles, to the publication of an all-German book of commissioned writing, Die Blaue Klang (Wolke Verlag, 2010), and the follow-up to 1996's much coveted and out-of-print Sleeves of Desire: A Cover Story (Lars Müller ...

Arild Andersen: Live at Belleville

By Karl Ackermann

More than forty years ago, Norwegian bassist, Arild Andersen joined saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the late Finnish drummer Edward Vesala to record the groundbreaking Triptykon (ECM 1972), one of these musicians' most energized work. It's a happy coincidence that the new millennium has seen both Garbarek and Andersen--ECM artists, both--create what may be their individual masterpieces--Live at Belleville, in the bassist's case. Andersen's intervening ECM years have generated an impressive catalog of high quality work including Molde Concert (1982), Sagn ...

Arild Andersen: Green Into Blue - Early Quartets

By John Kelman

Arild Andersen Green In Blue: Early Quartets ECM Records 2010 He's one of Norway's “Big Four"--a group of artists who, with the assistance of the emerging ECM label in the early 1970s, kick-started international focus on the music from a country that, despite its relatively small population, has become a truly vital force in the evolution of jazz over the past 40 years. Alongside saxophonist Jan Garbarek, guitarist Terje Rypdal and ...

Arild Andersen: Live at Belleville

By John Kelman

The general international perception of Norway's jazz scene as “Nordic Cool," is, like most generalizations, inevitably distanced from truth. Atomic, The Core and Motif may possess no shortage of heat, but ECM has undeniably helped define that unmistakable Norwegian aesthetic. One of the “big four," brought to international attention in the early 1970s alongside guitarist Terje Rypdal, saxophonist Jan Garbarek, and drummer Jon Christensen, bassist Arild Andersen's ECM releases have largely avoided the kind of burning improvisational energy of his ...

Arild Andersen / Frode Alnaes / Stian Carstensen: Hostslov (Autumn Slow)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Høstsløv (Autumn Slow) is the third seasonal offering by the Norwegian bass master Arild Andersen and two of his fellow countrymen, guitarist Frode Alnæs and accordionist Stian Carstensen, after covering traditional Norwegian summer songs on Sommerbrisen (Summer Breeze) (KKV, 1998) and old and new Christmas carols on Julegløggen (KKV, 2003). Høstsløv is another collection of familiar songs, played in a joyful and relaxed manner with loads of grace and charm.

Andersen and Alnæs have been collaborating for more ...

Arild Andersen Group: Electra

By John Kelman

With the exception of saxophonist Jan Garbarek, fellow Norwegian Arild Andersen--who has a considerably smaller discography as a leader--has created some of the ECM label's most stylistically diverse music since the early 1970s. From exploring the nexus of traditional folk music and improvisation on Sagn to the fusion-centric Molde Concert, the spontaneous composition of Karta and the Nordic Cool-meets-string quartet of Hyperborean, Andersen has explored a host of different angles from which to approach his personal jazz-centricity. And by combining ...

Arild Andersen/Vassilis Tsabropoulos/John Marshall: The Triangle

By AAJ Staff

For a player with a background in classical music, pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos has done wonders in the realm of jazz, and specifically improvisation. He still plays with a precise, sensitive touch and measures out dissonance in carefully metered pinches, but the tidal ebb and flow that characterizes this trio recording stands as remarkable evidence that he's made the transition completely and elegantly.

Triangle is so named more for the shared space than any sort of angular edges to ...

Arild Andersen / Vassilis Tsaboropoulos / John Marshall: The Triangle

By John Kelman

What a difference four years and touring time can make. The Triangle, the follow-up to 2000's sublime trio recording Achirana, shows a group that has grown in leaps and bounds, becoming something more, something larger. Clearly Vassillis Tsaboropoulos, an established classical pianist whose first recording of improvised music was Achirana, has evolved. While the thrust of the trio remains in chamber jazz, his playing is more extroverted. “Straight" and the 5/4 piece “Saturday" demonstrate a new-found brightness, and ...

Arild Andersen: Rarum XIX: Selected Recordings

By Charlie B. Dahan

Arild Andersen’s career as a bassist of high regard without much public notoriety, particularly in North America, is explored on this latest ECM reissue. Like the rest of the Rarum series, the label turns the reins over to the artist in choosing from their various ECM sides and has the subject artist write the liner notes—Andersen’s reissue is no exception, and it helps make an excellent package. The collection features both Andersen’s work with his own ensemble, ...