It might have taken a little longer this time, but with ‘Holiday On Fire,’ guitarist, composer and producer Torben Waldorff has done it again.

Jensen and Olin draw from a deep well of experience and the broad diversity of music styles to make a little magic with a big band.

<<< Part Three, Whack Jazz In the final piece of these exhaustive, four-part salutes to the top releases of 2012, the fusion jazz records are surveyed. You May Also Like: S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2015 (Part 4 of 4, Fusion Jazz): John McLaughlin, Chris Potter, Donny McCaslin, Jeff LorberRead More

If it’s an even-numbered year, it’s a safe bet that guitarist Torben Waldorff will have a new album out, and it’s a similarly sound assumption that such a record will be well-conceived, mellifluous, and briskly performed. You May Also Like: Torben Waldorff – Holiday On Fire (2017) Donny McCaslin –Read More

Photo of Ingrid Jensen from http://www.ingridjensen.com by S. Victor Aaron Nordic Connect is a grouping of musicians from Canada (Ingrid Jensen, trumpet; Ingrid’s sister Christine Jensen, alto and soprano saxes), U.S.A. (Ingrid’s husband Jon Wikan, drums), and Sweden (Maggie Olin (piano, Fender Rhodes; Mattias Welin, acoustic bass). The name pointsRead More

photo: Arne Reimer by S. Victor Aaron A couple of summers ago I was treated to the pleasing but discerning modern jazz found all over Torben Waldorff’s Afterburn. The great Dane guitarist/composer who resides in Sweden is a household name in our little ‘berg on the internet, and needs noRead More

by Pico Yesterday was a look back at what I thought were the best mainstream music releases of 2008. Now it’s time for the installment of this year’s “Best Of” series that’s my main bread and butter: straight ahead jazz. More records of that sort were covered in this spaceRead More

Used to be that whenever the term “Scandinavian jazz” would come up, one could summarize it by pointing to the sterile, pristine folk-jazz popularized by Jan Garbarek and the ECM label from the seventies on. In recent times, it’s come to mean such a variety of styles and tendencies thatRead More