Bobo Stenson at 80

The masterful Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, an ECM mainstay since the label’s early years, celebrates his 80th birthday today with creativity undimmed. Bobo was first heard on ECM in 1971, on three albums recorded within a five-month period: Jan Garbarek’s SART, Terje Rypdal’s eponymously-titled album, and Bobo’s own trio session Underwear with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen. By the mid-1970s the Jan Garbarek-Bobo Stenson Quartet (Witchi-Tai-To, Dansere) was among the most popular bands in Europe, headlining festivals and topping the jazz polls.

A generous contributor to the music of others, Stenson was Charles Lloyd’s right hand man through a series of historically-important albums beginning with Fish Out of Water in 1990. The pianist also played with Don Cherry – an old friend – on Cherry’s final recording Dona Nostra, and made decisive contributions to the music of another great trumpeter, Tomasz Stanko (Mattka Joanna, Leosia, Litania).

Over the last two decades, the Bobo Stenson Trio, with bassist Anders Jormin and drummer Jon Fält has become the optimum context in which to enjoy the full scope of Bobo’s improvisational open-mindedness. Very few bands have as broad a range. In performances and in the studio the trio might reference jazz from Ellington to Ornette to free improvisation or ‘classical’ expressions from Mompou, Satie and Bartók to Alban Berg and Charles Ives. World folk traditions are part of the story, too, with an emphasis on Scandinavian balladry, Cuban song, and more…

“We don’t have a way of playing ‘ready-made’,” Bobo has explained. “Things crystallize in the moment and we adjust to that. And that’s the quintessence. That’s the joy of playing together, to never do the same thing twice and to be determined about that.”

In practice, the absence of a plan has turned out to be the best plan of all, and the Stenson trio has shaped an organic identity from its stylistic freedom.

We look forward to more steadfast refusal of categorization.

Many happy returns, Bobo!

"…. Stenson remains one of the most sophisticated and rewarding jazz pianists on the planet, even in a jazz age containing so many remarkable ones…Fält is the creative wild card in the Swedish threesome. Jormin is intonationally near-perfect, has a low-end roar like an alpine horn, can play swerving microtonal runs that suggest a sitar, and is as gracefully conversational as any bassist in Europe…" says Guardian’s (UK) Jazz Critique, John Fordham (2006, oct. 13th)

First establishing himself within the European jazz scene on moving to Stockholm in 1966 and making a name for himself, playing with a long line of luminaries including Dextor Gordon, George Russell, Don Cherry and Stan Getz before beginning a long association with the German record label ECM (led by producer Manfred Eicher ) becoming a vital member of several groundbreaking groups those with the Jan Garbarek/Bobo Stenson quartet as well as Charles Lloyd and Tomasz Stanko, Bobo Stenson is a household word (for more information: www.ecmrecords.com)

However, one of the great European jazz units, the Bobo Stenson piano trio has held its eminent position among the heady stable of ECM and Bobo keeps on focusing on that most elegant of Jazz formats.

"... When You think about trio it is the piano leading the whole thing more or less. I never thought about those things .. I always thought that everyone should be equal in the band..." explains Stenson to A. Henkin (Allaboutjazz-NY March 7, 2006).

In Jazz Times (oct.2010), Thomas Conrad focusing on ”five next-level piano trios”, points out: Bobo Stenson’s five trio recordings on ECM (Reflections, War Orphans, Serenity, Goodbye, Cantando) are a genre of piano poetry unto themselves. Stenson is one of the important Ornette Coleman interpreters. He also plays Henry Purcell, Alban Berg, Swedish folk music, his own rarefied originals, and very occasional standards like Send in the Clowns. But all of his sources are transubstantiated into a proprietary Stenson harmonic atmosphere of shadow and cold, clean light. The care with which he allocates and adorns musical space reflects a unique way of thinking and feeling and encountering the world-austere, Nordic, dignified and soulful. The genesis of the current trio dates back almost three decades, the beginning of Bobo’s intensive association with Swedish double bass player, Anders Jormin. Being a professor in improvised music in Goteborg, a highly respected performer on the international concert scene, constantly creating new projects of his own, having been touring and recording with many of the legends in jazz (among others: Gilberto Gil, Lee Konitz, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson and Ann-Sofi von Otter) composing for various ensembles in contemporary jazz/chamber music, A. Jormin can also be qualified as the kind of player who actually requires "no further introduction". (extra: offcial Website from Ander Jormin http://www.xgac.se/jormin)