Jan Garbarek Group feat. Trilok Gurtu
Jan Garbarek (1947), an outstanding tenor and soprano saxophonist (he also plays sopranino, flutes, bass saxophone, synthesizers, percussion instruments), composer, leader, one of the key figures of European jazz, co-creator of the aesthetics called ECM sound.
Jan Garbark’s work is situated on the border of jazz, Norwegian folklore, classical and ethnic music. Its hallmark has become its wide melodic singing arcs, the way of operating with space, silence, restraint of expression and crystalline sound.
He is the only child of Czesław Garbarek, a former forced laborer in a Nazi labor camp, who remained in Norway after the liberation and married the daughter of a farmer from the Mysen area. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 14, inspired by Coltrane’s radio broadcast of Countdown ; He mastered the technique of playing the instrument on his own.
In 1962, Garbark’s quartet won the Norwegian Amateur Jazz Championships, which became the beginning of the artist’s professional career. Soon after, he started working with Jon Christensen, Terj Rypdal and Arild Andersen, and then with George Russell, who was active in Scandinavia at the time. In the late 1960s, he recorded his first free-fusion albums, including Afric Pepperbird, released in 1970 by ECM. Under the banner of this publishing house, he has recorded several dozen albums both as a leader and partner of many outstanding musicians, m.in. Gary Peacock, Charlie Haden, Bill Frisell, Ralph Towner, Bobo Stenson, Eberhard Weber.
In the 1970s, he toured and recorded with Keith Jarrett’s European Quartet; the albums Belonging, My Song and Personal Mountains brought him worldwide recognition and are still considered one of the most important achievements in the careers of both artists. At the same time, he carried out his own projects (Witchi-Tai-To, Dis, Dancere, Places), which consolidated his image as a jazz impressionist. From the beginning, he has remained open to world music. He draws on the folklore of Scandinavia as well as the heritage of India and Pakistan – the albums Ragas and Sagas and Madar include improvised pieces in which he used the intonation, scales and ornamentation of Eastern music, while retaining all the features of his own style.
The album Officium (1994), recorded with the Hilliard Ensemble in the Austrian Abbey of St. Gerold, turned out to be a revelation. It was a pioneering, and fully successful, attempt at an improvising dialogue between the musician and the works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Garbarek’s sparse parts do not interfere with the structure of the works, but rather create a subtle addition, a contrast in colours, and are an element that enlivens the static character of the music of the old masters. The extraordinary success of the album (five Golden Records) confirmed the versatility of the artist’s musical language, his imagination and consistency in combining distant styles; he successfully continued this direction on the albums Mnemosyne (1999) and Officium Novum (2010).
Garbarek has also collaborated with Polish musicians – Marcin Wasilewski and Sławomir Kurkiewicz (the album Neighbourhood with Manu Katché as the leader).
In Krakow, he will perform with the Jan Garbarek Group, which consists of: Trilok Gurtu, Rainer Brüninghaus and Yuri Daniel.
Trilok Gurtu (1951, Mumbai), world-famous tabloid, percussionist, drummer, multi-instrumentalist, composer. His music is a kind of bridge between the classical tradition of India and the practice of improvisation developed in jazz and Western music.
He grew up in a family deeply rooted in Indian culture – his mother, Shobha Gurtu, was an outstanding singer. Already in his childhood, he began to learn to play the tabla with renowned masters, gaining a thorough education in rhythm, tala structures and vocal and percussion techniques, including konnakol. In the 70s, he mastered playing a jazz drum kit, listening to radio broadcasts and records. After leaving India, he worked first in Europe and then in the United States, where he gradually gained recognition as a musician with exceptional craftsmanship and versatility. During this period, he began to enter the circle of the international jazz scene – first through collaborations with Charlie Mariano, and then, as part of concert and studio projects, with Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Dave Holland and Joe Zawinul; in the second half of the 80s he was a member of the group Oregon.
He made his debut as a leader with the album Usfret (1988), opening a series of original projects in which he developed his own concept of synthesizing the rhythms of India, Africa, jazz, fusion and African music (albums: Crazy Saints, African Fantasy, 21 Spices with the NDR Big Band).
From the 1990s to the present day, he has performed and recorded with a whole host of outstanding artists, m.in including Jan Garbark (Living Magic, Visible World), John McLaughlin, Bill Laswell, Bob Dylan and Erik Clapton. Although he is sometimes associated with the jazz and world music scene, he emphasizes that he is closer to the idea of broadly understood improvised music than belonging to a specific genre.
Rainer Brüninghaus (1949), an outstanding German pianist and composer associated with ECM Records. He began his career in the 1970s, collaborating with Eberhard Weber, Charlie Mariano, Manfred Schoof, Ralph Towner and Kenny Wheeler, among m.in others. He also performed successfully as a soloist. In the next decade, he led his own band, carried out projects with German big-bands on the radio, recorded and toured with Markus Stockhausen, John Abercromb and Trilok Gurtu, among m.in others. Since 1988 he has been regularly performing and recording with Jan Garbark (m.in. albums Took Up the Runes, Twelve Moons, Rites). He also creates jazz music for various compositions, symphonic and film.
Yuri Daniel (1966), Brazilian double bassist and bass guitarist, composer, band leader, session musician. He studied double bass and composition at the Escola de Música e Belas Artes in Curitiba. At the end of the 1980s, he moved to Portugal, where, thanks to a scholarship, he studied at the jazz school operating at the Hot Clube de Portugal in Lisbon. He has collaborated with many leading figures of the Portuguese scene, m.in Rui Veloso, Maria João and pianist Mário Laginha; he also participated in the projects of American musicians – Rick Latham and John Stubblefield.
Since 2007, he has been a permanent member of the Jan Garbarek Group. With this band he tours all over the world and recorded the album Dresden – In Concert. In 2021, his original album Northern Lights was released.
