Jan Garbarek
Garbarek's sound is one of the hallmarks of the ECM record label and he is one of the most respected and acclaimed voices of European jazz. His collaborations with the Hilliard Ensemble has brought his music to a wide audience worldwide.
Biography
The Norwegian saxophon player, Jan Garbarek had an early breakthrough into the elite of modern jazz in the 60's, due to his extensive cooperation with Keith Jarrett. His name is listed next to the big names from the U.S. and is associated with the birth of an original european sound in jazz.
His tone is clear, indipendent, ascetic and pure. "The north and nature, song and mystery" are what Garbarek calls his origins and these are his unrefutable heritage. If it wasn't for his strong inner connection with Norwegian folklore, he wouldn't be able to integrate Brasilian and Asiatic influences as convincingly as he does. That the origin of all music lies in song, is to be felt in many of his compositions, and his greatest attention lies on melody and on the clear articulation of melodious-lines, that he plays with unmistakable impressive urgency. "In my best moments I hope to give meaning to every note".
Jan Garbarek's Chambermusic-Jazz might well be the most beautiful sound next to silence, and he, as sculptor of these sounds, is intrinsingly connected with the illustrative and folkloristic qualities and influences. He is an original stylist always searching for new realms for his intense and extremely visual music.
Jan Garbarek (born 4 March 1947 in Mysen, Norway) is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czeslaw Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter. Effectively stateless until the age of seven (there is no automatic grant of citizenship in Norway) Garbarek grew up in Oslo. At 21, he married Vigdis. His daughter Anja Garbarek is also a musician.
Garbarek's sound is one of the hallmarks of the ECM record label, which has released virtually all of his recordings. His style incorporates a sharp-edged tone, long, keening, sustained notes, and generous use of silence. He began his recording career in the late 1960s, notably featuring on recordings by the American jazz composer George Russell (such as Othello Ballet Suite and Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature). If he had initially appeared as a devotee of Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, by 1973 he had turned his back on the harsh dissonances of avant-garde jazz, retaining only his tone from his previous approach.
Garbarek gained wider recognition through his work with pianist Keith Jarrett's European Quartet which released the albums Belonging (1974), My Song (1977) and the live recordings Personal Mountains (1979), and Nude Ants (1979).[2] He was also a featured soloist on Jarrett's orchestral works Luminessence (1974) and Arbour Zena (1975)[3]
As a composer, Garbarek tends to draw heavily from Scandinavian folk melodies, a legacy of his Ayler influence. He is also a pioneer of ambient jazz composition, most notably on his 1976 album Dis a collaboration with guitarist Ralph Towner that featured the distinctive sound of a wind harp on several tracks. This textural approach, which rejects traditional notions of thematic improvisation (best exemplified by Sonny Rollins) in favour of a style described by critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton as "sculptural in its impact", has been critically divisive. Garbarek's more meandering recordings are often labeled as New Age music, a style generally scorned by more orthodox jazz musicians and listeners, or spiritual ancestors thereof. Other experiments have included setting a collection of poems of Olav H. Hauge to music, with a single saxophone complementing a full mixed choir; this has led to notable performances with Grex Vocalis, but not yet to recordings. In the 1980s, Garbarek's music began to incorporate synthesizers and elements of world music. He has collaborated with Indian and Pakistani musicians such as Trilok Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Ustad Fateh Ali Khan.
In 1994, during heightened popularity of Gregorian chant, his album Officium, a collaboration with early music vocal performers the Hilliard Ensemble, became one of ECM's biggest-selling albums of all time, reaching the pop charts in several European countries and was followed by a sequel, Mnemosyne, in 1999. In 2005, his album In Praise of Dreams was nominated for a Grammy. Garbarek's first live album Dresden was released in 2009.
Garbarek has composed music for the Israeli film, Kippur, as well as for several European films, including French and Norwegian films. In addition, selections from Dis have been used as incidental music in several feature films and documentaries. His composition "Rites" was used in the American film, The Insider.
