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Bobo Stenson

Bo Gustav Stenson (mostly known as Bobo Stenson, born in 1944) is a Swedish piano player and jazz musician. Stenson was noted as early as 1963, when he stepped up from the local scene in Västerås to start playing frequently in Stockholm, where he accompanied a long line of visiting American players including Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Gary Burton. He also worked closely with Don Cherry from the beginning of the trumpeter's residency in Scandinavia.

The 70's was an intensive period for Bobo Stenson, playing in many constellations, amongst them the long-standing band Rena Rama with Palle Danielsson and a very popular trio with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen, later also with Jan Garbarek. In 1988, he joined the Charles Lloyd quartet and since 1996 appeared at major jazz festivals with Tomasz Stanko's septet/sextet.

Clara Lai Trio, Sam Weinberg and Interstellar Nao

by Maurice Hogue
June 12, 2023

A healthy dose of edgy new releases in this episode, featuring Spanish pianist Clara Lai and trio, saxophonist Sam Weinberg and trio, Bobo Stenson and several from the European hotbed of avant-garde--Netherlands (saxophonist Frans Vermeerssen, Cocktail Party Attack, saxophonist Bo Van De Graaf, & Mixing Memory and Desire), plus a freewheeling session from Mexico City featuring alto saxophonist Rick Countryman hitting it with some of the fine Mexican free jazz players.. Playlist Michael Formanek's Elusion Quartet “Entropy" from ...

Album Review

Bobo Stenson Trio: Sphere

by Mike Jurkovic
March 20, 2023

Bobo Stenson first rose to recognition as a sideman and in-house pianist in the late '60s with saxophonist Sonny Rollins, vibraphonist Gary Burton, and saxophonist Charles Lloyd, among many others. But it was in 1971, alongside drummer Jon Christensen, that he established his subtle, humorous shadings and folkish, earthy style with Underwear (ECM). Yet Stenson's intimate articulations are, for the most part, about as familiar to the less-than-fixated jazz world at large as one of those comets or asteroids blaze ...

Building a Jazz Library

ECM Records Touchstones: Part 3

by Dan McClenaghan
February 8, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This third edition of “ECM Touchstones" explores more of the label's early recordings, repackaged and offered up as a way to present music that had perhaps slipped through time's cracks, into the hard-to-find category. Of these, four were re-released in 2019, one in 2008—24 to 47 years after their original releases. The music on these albums is stylistically diverse and uniformly excellent. All of it has stood the test of ...

Album Review

Okay Temiz: Okay Temiz’s Oriental Wind Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1982

Read "Okay Temiz’s Oriental Wind Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1982" reviewed by Matthew Hutchison

by Matthew Hutchison
February 2, 2023

The six-plus decade resume of Okay Temiz is a landscape snapshot of someone who made the most of their professional opportunities from different angles. A sliver of the performance side has brought him partnerships with American jazz giants Don Cherry, Dexter Gordon, Art Taylor and Clark Terry, along with an array of established European and South African peers. Another angle of his creative side stems from Temiz's creation of his percussion instruments to incorporate in a standard kit, including his ...

In Pictures

Bobo Stenson Trio at Jazzontheroad Festival 2022

by Danilo Codazzi
July 27, 2022

A collection of photos from the Bobo Stenson Trio concert at Jazzontheroad Festival 2022 in Brescia on July 16, 2022 featuring Bobo Stenson, Mats Eilertsen and John Fält. ...

Album Review

Bobo Stenson Trio: War Orphans

Read "War Orphans" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 28, 2019

Manfred Eicher started ECM Records in 1969. Fifty years later, in 2019, with over 1500 releases to its name, the label continues to offer up compelling and unclassifiable music. And since the catalog is deep, and early-in-the-effort recordings have become harder to find, ECM periodically re-releases some of these gems, tagging them Touchstones. Early 2019--the half-century mark for ECM--finds a batch of twenty-five ECM Touchstone releases hitting the airwaves, music from pianist, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, pianist Paul ...

Album Review

Bobo Stenson: Contra la indecision

Read "Contra la indecision" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
August 7, 2018

Con Bobo Stenson siamo di fronte a uno dei volti caratteristici scaturiti dalla scena musicale del Nord Europa: quello segnato dalla raffinatezza timbrica, dallo scandaglio armonico, dalla ricerca melodica ricca di sfumature e digressioni che per certi versi fa riferimento a Bill Evans, ma ne anestetizza la forza dinamica, la nettezza tagliente, i bagliori di fulmine. Allo stesso modo le matrici possono essere quelle di Paul Bley e Keith Jarrett. Ma nei confronti del primo manca la consapevole sfrontatezza trasgressiva; ...

Contest

Enter the "Bobo Stenson Trio - Indicum" Giveaway at All About Jazz!

Source: All About Jazz
December 22, 2012

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the ECM Records “Bobo Stenson Trio - Indicum“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on January 22nd. Click here to enter the contest

(Becoming a fan of Bobo Stenson at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at ECM Records About Indicum

Free playing, Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 'Oft Am I Glad', tunes by Bill Evans and George ...
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118

Recording

Francois Carrier Trio + 1 with Bobo Stenson, "Entrance 3", Entrances

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
June 29, 2011

Francois Carrier has style. He keeps a balance between sound, linear content and expressivity in ways that are original and enlivening. When he gathered his alto, his trio and guest Bobo Stenson on piano at the Vancouver Jazz Fest in 2002, there was some magic in the air. It's captured on Entrance 3 (Ayler 106) and captured well. One thing, at least, is clear. Francois Carrier needs to be paid more attention. This is a freely expansive set of extended ...
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Interview