Results for "Nils Berg"

Toldam / Riedel / Berg / Wiklund / Christensen: Tak for dit brev

by Troy Dostert
October 6, 2021

Danish pianist Simon Toldam has made his mark as an abundantly creative improviser, most recently manifest on his work with Ways--a duo comprised of saxophonist Brodie West and drummer Evan Cartwright. Their Fortunes (Lorna Records, 2020) was an album defined by unusual gestures and subtle refractions, keeping the listener guessing throughout. Toldam's latest release, Tak for ...

Thandi Ntuli (Live at Jazzwerkstatt)

By Thandi Ntuli

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2020
Track listing: Setting The Tone for Exile (Live at Jazzwerkstatt); New Way (Live at Jazzwerkstatt); Portal (Live at Jazzwerkstatt); Rainbow Shane & Rico's Intro (Live at Jazzwerkstatt); Rainbow (Live at Jazzwerkstatt).

Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela, Luciana Souza, Dave Douglas & Other New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
May 9, 2020

We may be in lock-down mode but oustading jazz releases keep coming out as if nothing were of the COVID and the social distancing, bringing us much needed relief. One more reason to pay tribute to today's artists and to encourage everyone to support the music scene by purchasing music directly from the musicians and labels ...

Nils Berg

Born: October 9, 1977

There is a particular quality to the music Nils Berg makes — something that feels simultaneously ancient and restless, rooted and searching. It is a quality that places him in a long line of Scandinavian artists who have found a way to distill the Nordic landscape and temperament into sound: the lyrical economy of Jan Johansson, the melancholy warmth of Lars Gullin, the way Grieg could make a simple folk melody feel like it carried the weight of an entire geography.

Berg, a saxophonist, bass clarinetist and composer based in Stockholm, works in the space where jazz meets that broader Nordic sensibility — music that breathes slowly, that favors atmosphere and silence as much as notes, and that treats emotion as something to be approached with patience rather than force. Dubbed "the Fellini of Swedish jazz" by Dagens Nyheter and described as "mysterious and irresistible" by Rolling Stone, he has spent two decades building a body of work that is genuinely hard to categorize, and all the more compelling for it.

Lisen Rylander Löve: Oceans

by Troy Dostert
August 14, 2019

While up-and-coming Swede Lisen Rylander Löve is a talented tenor saxophonist, demonstrated nicely in the quartet Here's to Us on the undersung gem, Animals, Wild and Tame (Hoob Records, 2018), she is hardly content to limit herself to one instrument--or even one genre, for that matter. In Here's to Us she teams up with trumpeter Susana ...

Troy Dostert's Best Releases of 2018

by Troy Dostert
December 3, 2018

2018 was a terrific year for imaginative, well-executed recordings that cover the spectrum of instrumental configurations in creative jazz and freely improvised music. From Susana Santos Silva's mesmerizing solo trumpet to Ingrid Laubrock's formidable orchestra (and everything in between), the following choices are a cross-section of some of the best the year had to offer. Something ...

Altoadige Jazz Festival 2018

by Libero Farnè
July 11, 2018

Varie Sedi Provincia di Bolzano 29.06--08.07.2018 Da alcuni anni il sottotitolo di questo festival potrebbe essere “Young European Jazz Festival," visto che il suo curatore Klaus Widmann evita accuratamente di invitare gruppi americani o nomi europei già troppo noti. Il suo obiettivo è invece quello di sondare le giovani tendenze ...

The University of Toronto 12tet: Trillium Falls

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2017

This is an altogether sunny and pleasing session by the splendid University of Toronto 12tet, which sounds at times like a full-fledged big band, at others like a leaner and more even-tempered chamber jazz group. The songs and arrangements, most by members of the ensemble (including a couple by director Terry Promane), are lush and lyrical, ...

HOOB Records: Ten Years Young

by James Pearse
December 22, 2015

There is something romantic about starting a record label nowadays. With few financial incentives and a whole bunch of work to do to get the record recorded, promoted and distributed, it's a wonder people start records labels it at all. But they do. And many do it very well indeed. Artistic freedom is an ...

Sarah Riedel: Living Up To Expectations

by James Pearse
April 26, 2015

The world of jazz is no stranger to the sound of the Swedish language. Alice Babs and Monica Zetterlund--and more recently, Rigmor Gustafsson--are just a few of the names of jazz vocalists hailing from this cold northern country that have reached the ears of US and UK audiences. Some people believe that spoken Swedish ...