More Jacob Karlzon 3

• 1 Running 06:46
• 2 Nilha 04:35
• 3 Dirty 05:48
• 4 Between Us 06:21
• 5 Departure 04:55
• 6 The Riddle 07:01
• 7 Fool's Gold 05:22
• 8 Here to Stay 04:48
• 9 Epiphany 06:21
• 10 Rhododendron Rites 02:43
• Total Runtime 54:40

Info for More

'Rammstein? I take that as a compliment!' Jacob Karlzon laughs when one mentions the wonderful, often surprising, worlds of sound which he creates. Not in an ironical fashion, on the contrary. He is even delighted. Thus he laughs out loud and heartily, like only a man of his format can laugh – very loud indeed. ‘Even as child I listened to a lot of metal and electro. Although this type of music is nothing for pianists, its transported energy is, in fact, important. To listen to music that one does not make oneself opens up totally new horizons.’

Certainly, Jacob Karlzon’s horizons are wide. This pianist, who was named jazz musician of the year in his native Sweden in 2010 and who became internationally renowned for his long running collaboration with singer Viktoria Tolstoy, loves to work with extremes. This starts with his instrument whose emotional breadth ranges from fragile gentleness to a sense of mighty awe.

‘I came to jazz because I was really excited to engage in the spontaneity which is involved in playing improvised music. When I realized that improvisation above all is direct communication with the audience it really gripped me. This sheer delight and fun made me desire for more and more.’ And so Jacob Karlzon creates wonderful, large musical images with his tunes and sounds. He achieves this by employing his very own means of creation, and these are truly astounding: His music reveals brilliant technique in his play and brilliant play with his technique.

Besides instrumental ability, a great imagination for modern sounds characterizes Karlzon’s music. He calls it “technorganic” or also “acoustic but electric”. But these are really only means of expression; they are not an end in itself. The “jeans and boots guy” wants to tell stories of experience and dreams; he reveals something of himself, of his delight in music and performance. He does not want to deliver merely technically brilliant fireworks, even though, of course, he delivers these too on his new album “More”, - his ninth album and the first on the German label ACT.

Together with his JK3 members, Hans Andersson on bass and Jonas Holgersson on drums, Jacob Karlzon creates soundscapes of marvelous power and intensity.

Each of the eleven tracks on the new album offers new facets, yet Karlzon never looses himself in detail. The restless first piece, “Running”, opens up the scene which ranges from hints of metal-type sounds (“Dirty” and the KoRn cover “Here to Stay”), to the spheric-balladesque (“Nilha”, “Between Us”) and complex rhythms (“Departure” and “Epiphany”), to the final track “Rhododendron Rites” with its almost classical resonances. Various sounds and structures, all of which develop something of a song character, harmoniously work alongside each other. This includes the cover of Nick Kershaw’s hit “the Riddle” which, at first glance, certainly seems to be the most unusual piece in the album. Here Jacob Karlzon playfully integrates Swedish folk elements in his work whereby he weaves individual motifs in seemingly dream-walking fashion into some highly virtuoso solo passages.

What Jacob Karlzon develops in “More” is warm, lively and inviting, and at the same time surprising, floating and enthralling. At the beginning of each song we do not quite know where the journey will take us. What is certain, however, is that each journey in itself opens up new horizons. ‘I write and perform music like a soundtrack so as to capture and describe atmospheres and feelings. This is a very important element for me in music. Already as a child I loved to run around and let the experience of the scenery around me be underlined by listening to my walkman. What Jacob Karlzon develops from these sceneries is music for the inner film; great “head-cinema” which integrates all genres, senses and emotions. More is hardly possible.

'Swedish pianist Karlzon may be more widely known as a piano partner of the singer Viktoria Tolstoy, but this bright set ought to increase his own network. Karlzon looks and sounds like a man who hugely enjoys his work, and though the territory of funk, fusion and electronica-influenced piano jazz is a crowded one, the tunes here are simple but very infectious, and the fusion of pop grooves, jazz improv and classical phrasing doesn't sound forced for a moment. The opening Running (a floaty piano melody and synth harmony over a fast drums shuffle) hooks the listener from the off, glowing Chick Corea chords colour the lilting Nilha, and Dirty reflects Karlzon's childhood fondness for metal and electro in its dementedly crashing backbeat and bass vamp. Of the two covers, Nik Kershaw's The Riddle has a folksong's easy sway and a lot of inventive jazz piano later on, and Korn's Here to Stay is a stamping rocker with a slashing guitar-like synth break as the rhythm and bassline storm on. Epiphany has a Pat Methenyesque rock-ballad atmosphere, the unaccompanied Rhododendron Rites a ruminative classical-piano poise. A lot of contemporary musicians pick and mix like this, but Karlzon has done it with captivating musicality and a lot of good humour.' (John Fordham, The Guardian)

Jacob Karlzon, Hans Andersson, Jonas Holgersson,
Recorded, mixed and mastered in April & May 2012
by Lars Nilsson at Nilento Studio, Gothenburg
Assistant engineer: Michael Dahlvid
Additional recordings at ChassRoom, Malmö
Produced by Jacob Karlzon & Lars Nilsson
Executive Producer: Siggi Loch

Jacob Karlzon’s
music resides in the intersections where Scandinavian expressions such as space, melancholy and sensitivity blend with heat and passion.

Jacob has been compared to such luminaries as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Sweden’s own legendary pianist Jan Johansson. His playing style boasts technical brilliance, great rhythmic and harmonic complexity and a perfect feeling for form.

Jacob Karlzon is already a jazz veteran. His first album came out in 1992, since then he has recorded five more in his own name, and featured on at least 40 others. He has been showered with distinctions and prizes over the years. In 1997 he won the Jazz in Sweden award with the Malmö combo Blue Pages and was voted Newcomer of the Year by Swedish Radio’s annual jazz critic poll. In 2010 he was voted Musician of the Year by Swedish Radio’s annual jazz critic poll and was rewarded the Django d’Or as Contemporary Star of Jazz.

He has played with many other leading jazz musicians: Billy Cobham, Kenny Wheeler, Bob Berg, Tim Hagans, Jeff Ballard, Norma Winstone, Cæcilie Norby, Nils Landgren, to name but a few.

Jacob released his first solo piano album in the autumn of 2008. The third volume in a new series of improvised piano music, Improvisational three had Jacob interpret and be inspired by French composer Maurice Ravel. The album was enthusiastically received by the critics.

The most important forum for Jacob, however, is his own trio. JK3 has been touring in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Germany and UK playing in clubs and festivals for raving audiences and critics.

This album contains no booklet.