Jan Garbarek started out a little bit on the whack-jazz side but has long settled into a Nordic folk/world fusion/new age-ish blend whose distinctiveness is only surpassed by his yearning, yet clinical soprano or tenor sax. Together, these components virtually spawned the whole Scandinavian jazz sound and the Norwegian-born Garbarek is still its most important proponent.
Dresden, released on Sept. 4, 2009, brought this sound out of the sterile environs of Manfred Eicher’s studio and onto a stage for one October night a couple of years earlier in Germany. I still love the setup: a lean, crack band consisting of Rainer Bruninghaus on keys, Yuri Daniel on bass (filling in for the then-ill Eberhard Weber) and Manu Katché on drums. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor saxes, as well as a selje flute.
Secondly, Jan Garbarek divided his repertoire fairly evenly among old originals, new originals and well-chosen covers. Garbarek’s one-of-a-kind playing remained in fine form here, and the other musicians got their time in the sun too, each contributing a composition a piece that showcased their own performing abilities. Katché especially dazzled, with commanding percussion work that he rarely shows even on his own albums.
Through a mixture of Norwegian folk songs and probing, modern melodies, Jan Garbarek displays a finesse in distilling a varieties of styles into his unique imprint. The highlight of Dresden will always be their epic performance of Milton Nascimento’s “Milagre Dos Peixes.”
Garbarek didn’t record nearly as prolifically in the ’00s as he had the prior three decades, but he ended this period with the most essential Jan Garbarek album in a long time. The double-disc Dresden wasn’t a theme album, just a project focused on the essence of this major European artist.
If you are curious about what makes Jan Garbarek such a key figure in the whole notion of blending European folk melodies with American jazz, this is still a fine place to start exploring.
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