Thread of Jakob Bro (Danish jazz guitarist, maker of floating minimal ballads)

I've become obsessed with Jakob Bro's records, particularly the Balladeering / Time / December Song trilogy, but also Pear River and the trio records with Thomas Morgan and Joey Baron. They're all I want to listen to at the moment, and have become even more poignant now that Lee Konitz and Paul Motian are gone.

Also pretty amazing that there are video recordings of the studio sessions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJAkyEpR70Y

Lee Konitz talking about mortality, and then saying "I've spent my whole life being influenced by Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano, Lester Young and all the great jazz players...and all of a sudden I'm playing whole notes and half notes on chord progressions without knowing why..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacgAEmcFK4

From the recent tribute to Paul Motian album with Joe Lovano (and two drummers + two bassists):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUN3bBgT7c

Great revive! Was just getting back into this era/trilogy of Bro's of my own accord in the last day or two, I think after recommending Kenny Wheeler's Angel Song to a customer at the bookstore in whose music/video department I work, and then asking him if he was in turn familiar with the Motian/Lovano/Frisell trio, which then led me to bring up December Song in terms of a similar general vibe.

(On a related note, I highly recommend checking out the Uncle Paul's Jazz Closet podcast/radio show, hosted by Motian's niece Cindy McGuirl, if you haven't yet: https://www.instagram.com/paulmotianarchive/)

Another recent release I'd really recommend which is related in vibe and in terms of another guitar-playing Motian big-band alumnus would be Ben Monder's duo album with George Winstone, Odysseus, as floating and minimal as the toga towel George W. sports on its album cover:
https://georgewinstone.bandcamp.com/album/odysseus

Thanks for the recommendations, putting that one on now (incredible cover).

Another one on this vibe is Charles Lloyd's "Trios: Chapel" with Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan.

Odysseus is cool, an example of Ben Monder's current mode of quiet, ambient distorted shredding. It seems like an oxymoron but somehow he pulls it off (like in the Bad Plus), he rolls off the high end and turns the volume down, and somehow creates a pleasant cushion of dissonant distorted shred.

Totally--an excellent/apt way to describe his approach; while am v happy that him and Chris Speed are the new/recent piano replacement/melodic foils in the Bad Plus since I'm a big fan of both those players, I esp like his 'ambient shredding' style in the total-improv context of his trio with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey:
https://benmondertonymalabytomrainey.bandcamp.com/album/monder-malaby-rainey-live-in-lisbon

(Not to Bro-tally derail this thread, though, ha)

To bring things back to Bro-ing down in a roundabout way, did you get into the ca. 2005-2010 trio Tape? Their melodic sense, esp on 2008's Luminarium, really strikes me as having commonalities with Jakob B:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icopZFc7t7Q

(Tape admittedly seem to have arrived at their similar spin on things from a decidedly more post-rock [post-Tortoise/Gastr] than jazz angle, though)

Now that Denmark has been repped via Bro and Sweden via Tape/Hapna, I feel the need to throw Norway's Hubro label in the ring to for a pan-Scand folk/jazz battle of the balladry: https://hubromusic.bandcamp.com/

(Too, whoops)

I was not familiar with Tape but it's very much on my current vibe.

The season started changing and I've now moved from the hardest of swing (Jazz Messengers) to the most delicate sweater jazz, lol.

Craig Taborn's sweater worn in those session doc video clips posted above = sweater jazz goals, ha

to me Balladeering is the masterpiece but it's all stellar, have seen him play many times and he's been my gateway to contemporary jazz, he finds such great players and brings out their best

highly recommend the Music for Black Pigeons doc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI07dp_pFsU

Would love to see that whole doc.

Wolfgang Muthspiel's new one (w/Scott Colley & Brian Blade) is really nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo5iXts6-6s

Following the thread, I'm really into Skuli Sverrisoson's duet albums with Bill Frisell and Oskar Gudjonsson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfJyCl19QVU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzXrsv0bTM

Which led me to Oskar Gudjonsson (sax player with a beautiful breathy tone) on this record by another Danish guitarist, Soren Dahl Jeppesen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4QMrbNik7I

And Jakob Bro is on his (Soren Dahl Jeppesen's) first record, 'Route One'. Now I'm curious why he hasn't released anything in a decade.

Oskar Gudjonsson is also in the very excellent but poorly named band ADHD with his (twin?) brother, who is a SHREDDER

Søren Dahl Jeppesen is also in Pauseland, maybe you'll like it:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2m11B2Ous4QUZqOg0BtZHw?si=HYIkd49UTf6Vkzex2DN8ZQ

Jakob Høyer and AC (drums and bass on the Jeppesen record and also Bro collaborators) are on the new Rasmus Oppenhagen Krogh which should hit the spot:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4gpT9ZylOKCpG4DvUIL2zi?si=g2UKjQTISfebZDIhwvVOhQ

From the recent tribute to Paul Motian album with Joe Lovano (and two drummers + two bassists):

📹

this is more bluesy than what you may be getting at but an essential Bro track for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFrURYbgPKI
A.D. Buchanan's Armchair Gospel by Jakob Buchanan (trumpet and other horns) with Marilyn Mazur on percussion and Jonas Westergaard on bass

Good to know Soren Dahl Jeppesen is alive and well and playing in a band. Loving the Rasmus Krogh album so far, ty! Also love that he's clearly a Bro disciple (the credits on Bandcamp list the members as having played with Bro as a flex)..."the contemporary Nordic noir sound" indeed.

Unfortunately it's German given the remit of the thread, but I looked up Johannes Enders (who I love from the Tied + Tickled Trio) and ended up with this record of duets with a church organist. Somewhat similar vibe to the Skuli Sverrisson & Oskar Gudjonsson record -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCB8W3Uj8o

adjacent new single from Rasmus Oppenhagen with Emil de Waal on very light drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NjnGmTpFrI

Thanks, I listened to his album from last year a ton

Jakob Bro subbing for Bill Frisell on Ambrose Akinmusire's tour is confirmation that the Akinmusire/Frisell/Herlin Riley album ('Owl Song') is definitively part of this musical universe.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3DwTmAsSo9/?img_index=1

Using this as the 'ambient jazz' thread since I don't think we started a separate one. This Dave Harrington/Max Jaffe/Patrick Shiroishi record is super nice (guitar/drums/sax). Ambient free improvisations, heavy on the textures, done very well.

https://daveharringtonmaxjaffepatrickshiroishi.bandcamp.com/album/speak-moment

Actually ambient doesn't do it justice, there's some intensity, some desert music bits, some skronk, etc.

long run a the vanguard this week with a sick band ft brian blade

I saw some of a set by Bro at Big Ears last weekend, it was really lovely — and a kind of funny contrast to the Thurston Moore/John Paul Jones utter noisefest I had just exited a few minutes earlier.