Three Short Trips with Torben Westergaard

Insert cliche here about how good things can come in small packages. While the world continues insistently churning with digital chatter and ADHD, Torben Westergaard has been leaning toward the simple and concise with a string of snack-sized (yet wildly eclectic) EPs. If you know the bassist's history or personality, though, you can guess that this is not a concession to short attention spans. Sometimes the music simply comes in tidy portions, and each one is a colorfully crafted work complete in itself.

Torben Westergaard
Dialogues
Self Produced
2024

Helio Alves and his piano have graced several of Westergaard's more Brazilian-rooted recordings in the past, which makes it no surprise that the two have a comfortable enough rapport to wander away from the band context and simply chat on their own. All right, the patterns of Brazilian jazz mean that the chat is not exactly simple, and Dialogues is less of a back-and-forth dialogue than a reading where they speak in tandem to the rest of us. No matter—however they talk, the chemistry is a delight and the language is beautiful.

The quick session keeps a touch of tango running steadily throughout; the pair step slinky lines around each other like a pair of dancers through the snappy noir of "Minor Me," break into actual capering with the sunny "Den Første Gang Jeg Så Dig," and then cross the two to make "Ab Ovo" into a sort of charming nocturne. When Rogerio Boccato steps in for the finale, the extra percussive spice kicks things into bright gear again for a downright exuberant finish. Here's hoping that these two are in no danger of running out of things to converse about.

Torben Westergaard
Hjerteuglen (The Heart Owl)
Self Produced
2025

Insert other cliche here about never being too old to be childlike. This one follows on from 2019's Kirsebærsne (Self Produced), an outlier in the Westergaard catalogue that mixed kids' rhymes with a soundtrack perfectly sweet and wholesome. While a sunny streak seems to run through almost all his music, these are spots where it shines with pure innocence. His co-writer this time is another children's-book author—longtime collaborator Marianne Iben Hansen, whose poetry glides with a rhythm that is easy to follow even if you don't speak a word of Danish—and they produce another helping of musical candy bordering on adorable.

Whether or not you understand the fairy-tale stories themselves, Hjerteuglen is an unmistakable shot of whimsy straight from the jaunty opening singalong. "Flyvefisken og Grisen" is even more sugary, spinning a cutesy polka dance with catchy "aah"s and handclaps. Alternating with these is a pair of sedate sambas less bouncy but every bit as sunny, where the fanciful singing floats over piano and trombone, all drifting without a care in the world. The EP ends up feeling like a sort of aural cartoon special, albeit at half the length. It may be best to give this one a miss if your saccharine tolerance is low on a given day, but the spirit is perfectly sincere and there for anyone who can appreciate it.

Torben Westergaard
Calmful Transitions
Self Produced
2024

As simple as the setup is—two players, minimal gimmicks—the point here is to try to make things even simpler. Westergaard's extended pieces here are again shaped by the hectic world, specifically by a research study on school children with their days packed with regimented time slots, and it was composed to create soothing music for the spaces between. He and flautist Toshiyuki Shibata carve out deeply thoughtful 10-minute trance pieces diffusing (or perhaps spitefully defying) that habitual impulse to constantly rush to the next thing. These are meditations to create a small oasis of midnight calm at any point of the day.

Westergaard provides a perfectly organic pulse, floating along in mantric patterns steady enough to half-hypnotize or actually lull a person to sleep. While the bass and Shibata's flute could make a pleasant enough trance on their own, there are enough dashes of tonal variety to keep things far away from static. Subtle loops, light bleeps and simple vocal croons come and go on the fringes, while the players slide into the occasional brief solo and just as gently slide back into the groove. Staying in place does not mean staying motionless, merely ebbing and shifting with deep patience until it feels like sliding out of time completely.

Tracks and Personnel

Dialogues

Tracks: Higher Minds; Minor Me; Den Første Gang Jeg Så Dig; Ab Ovo; Sempre.

Personnel: Helio Alves: piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer; Torben Westergaard: bass, additional keyboards, voice; Rogério Boccato: percussion (selected tracks).

Hjerteuglen (The Heart Owl)

Tracks: Otte Små Fidumseditter (Eight Little Whatchamacallits); Hjerteuglen (The Heart Owl); Flyvefisken og Grisen (The Flying Fish and the Pig); Ønskesedlen (The Wish List).

Personnel: Torben Westergaard: vocal, bass, keyboards, kor; Ernesto Snajer: guitar; Mariano Tiki Cantero: percussion; Helio Alves: piano; Sophie Ziedoy: background vocals; August Wanngren: trombone (2, 4).

Calmful Transitions

Tracks: Quiet Music; Calm Music; Quiet Music (radio edit); Calm Music (radio edit).

Personnel: Toshiyuki Shibata: transverse flute, baroque flute; Torben Westergaard: bass, keyboards, voice.

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