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Tellef Øgrim

played since 1969, rock bands, jazz, theatre, solo

About Me

Tellef got his first guitar in 1969. It was a really bad instrument, The ones that followed where not much better. Some of them were home built, plugged into amplifiers made from modified radio cabinets. (The drummer was playing on plastic buckets.) It was all about rock and roll. There were records, television and touring, after a while with real instruments. Jazz and theater music followed. At one point, inspired by the do-it-yourself-experimenting from his youth, he ripped the frets of a Yamaha SG electric. It was used on single tracks on 2 records and then forgotten. From 1992 he and did not play for 5 years but in stead worked as a talk radio host, journalist and father og 3. His period away from playing ended when he rediscover the de-fretted Yamaha. Since then this weird instrument has been his steady partner. In 2004 he released a solo CD with this instrument and in 2007 Curling Legs Records put out his CD Wagon8 featuring Dag Einar Eilertsen and Jacek Kochan. Later the same year he played on “Do I the In?” (NotTwo records) with Joe Fonda, Franz Hautzinger and Jacek Kochan. In the fall of 2010 Tellef started a collaboration with Clementine Gasser and Jacek Kochan in a Gasser-Kochan-Ogrim Trio. The group's first album ”What's wrong with Now?” was released by NotTwo records in May 2012.

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My Jazz Story

I love jazz because of the freedom it offers, meaning that I do not particularly like (to play) jazz without freedom. I was first exposed to jazz in the early 70ties. The best show I ever attended was Jan Garbarek playing at Sogn Studentby in 1979. The first jazz record I bought was Witchi-Tai-To by Jan Garbarek Bobo Stensson quartet. My advice to new listeners is to keep an open mind.

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