Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen - R.I.P.

[Cem]

Originally Posted by Captain Hate

NHOP always played at such a high level without being showy about it. RIP

So true! I love this one...



My condolences to his loved ones.

[gonzo]

one of my very favorite upright bass players. very saddened by the news.
RIP NHOP

[Zephyr]

Got this yesterday by e-mail:


Copenhagen April 20 2005.

The bassist known as 'The Great Dane with the Never Ending Name' has passed away at the age of 58, daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported Wednesday.

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was one of the biggest stars on the international jazz scene, and may have been the most famous jazz musician born in Denmark.

Pedersen got his great break in 1973, when he became part of the Oscar Petersen Trio, which secured him a place in the circle around impresario and record company manager Norman Granz.

During his carreer, Pedersen played with Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald, to name but a few.

He wrote the melodies 'My Little Anna', 'Jaywalkin'', and 'The Puzzle', as well as some well-loved jazz versions of Danish folksongs.

Pedersen, who sometimes called himself by his intials, NHØP, was named the world's best bass player by Melody Maker in 1977. He received the Nordic Council's Music Prize in 1990, The Ben Webster Prize in 1999, and the Legend of Jazz prize Django d'Or in 2002.

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

That's terrible! What a mighty bassist he was!

Does anyone know how he died?

A stroke, is what I heard.

Gone way too soon.

[DownbeatDave]

Just heard from a good friend of mine in Denmark that Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen has passed away at the age of 58. I was lucky enough to have seen him last year in Copenhagen. He played a show at the Jazzhuis that featured Kenny Barron on piano, Alvin Queen on drums and Finn Ziegler on violin. This was a celebration for Finn Ziegler, a well known musician in Denmark. I would place NHOP in the top pantheon on bass players that would include Ray Brown, Oscar Pettiford and Milt Hinton . And let's not forget Dave Holland either. The world is a little poorer place without the talent and brilliance that was Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen

[Richardo Caerleoni]

NHOP...Just heard that he died in his sleep [heart "stopped"] - so I suppose that is one blessing in all this...[His elder brother died the same way about five years ago, so maybe a "family" condition].

Everyone in DK, not just "Jazz People", seem in shock. They were rightly very proud of him.

RC





Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen
(Filed: 22/04/2005) - Telegraph on Line [UK]

Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, who died in Copenhagen on Tuesday aged 58, was described by Oscar Peterson as "arguably the most inventive bassist in jazz"; a supreme virtuoso of the double bass, he was nevertheless one of the most judicious and least selfish of accompanists.

Pedersen, whose name proved such a mouthful that he was customarily referred to as "NHOP", was among the most frequently recorded jazz musicians in history, having taken part in more than 400 albums. There was scarcely a major name with whom he had not played in the course of the last 40 years.

Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, the son of a church organist, was born at Osted, Denmark, on May 27 1946. He began piano lessons at the age of seven, and at 13, when he was tall enough, took up the double bass in order to play in his family band. He made such rapid progress that, within two years, he was playing at the Montmartre Jazzhus, Copenhagen's leading jazz club.

He became a member of the resident band, a trio which accompanied the parade of star soloists who passed through the club. These included the saxophonists Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon, trumpeters Chet Baker and Art Farmer, multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk and the pianist Bill Evans. At the age of 17 he was invited to join the Count Basie orchestra, but was forced to decline, mainly on account of his youth but also because he wanted to complete his studies.

Pederson's instinctive grasp of the jazz idiom allowed him to fit in with a remarkable variety of styles, including such avant garde artists as Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler. However, it was in the broad mainstream of jazz that he felt most at home. Between 1964 and 1982, and occasionally thereafter, he was a member of the Danish Radio Big Band, one of the finest jazz orchestras in Europe.

He subsequently recorded an album, Ambiance (1993), which featured him accompanied by this band, in which his extraordinary technique is heard to full advantage. He had developed a method of playing pizzicato using all four fingers of the right hand, enabling him to execute very high-speed passages without sacrificing either tone or definition. Although he used an amplifier, there was always a deep, woody core to his sound.

During the early 1970s, Pedersen joined the American pianist Kenny Drew, then resident in Scandinavia, to perform duets at European festivals. Together they recorded a superb album, Duo, in 1973. He also recorded acclaimed duet albums with the guitarists Joe Pass and Philip Catherine, but it was his association with Oscar Peterson which brought him universal recognition.

From 1974 until 1987, Pedersen toured regularly as a member of Peterson's trio. He was originally hired as an emergency replacement, on the recommendation of Peterson's original bassist, Ray Brown. "He's the only one I know that might keep up with you," were Brown's words, and they proved to be prophetic. Peterson wrote in his memoirs: "His virtuosity on the bass surpasses anyone else that I have known." Perhaps the best of Pedersen's many recordings with the trio is The Paris Concert (1978).

Pedersen remained firmly attached to his Danish roots. In recent years he led his own bands, made up mostly of Scandinavian players. Notable among these were the guitarist Ulf Wakenius, trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg and pianist Kenneth Knudsen. He also taught at the Rytmiske Musikkonservatorium in Copenhagen. He was married with children.

[chuckyd4]

God, what a loss. As a one-time pretender with a bass, when I was first discovering jazz, I used to gobble up every session of his that I could find. Versatile, soulful, and always up to the demands of whatever type of session he took part in.

I am off to EMusic to grab some of the Pablo sessions I have on CD but do not have here in France with me.

RIP

[Rob Damen]

Oh, how sad this is.

RIP, NHOP

[Richardo Caerleoni]

NHOP ...Contd...

Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen
Jazz double bass player of breathtaking dexterity
22 April 2005 - Independent Obit

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, double bass player: born Osted, Denmark 27 May 1946; married (three daughters); died Ishøj, Denmark 19 April 2005.

NHOP or Niels-Henning, the two short forms universally used in the lazy world of jazz, played the double bass, not normally the most prominent instrument in a jazz group. But he was such a virtuoso that in the Sixties he showed that Europeans could play jazz as instinctively as the American originators.

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was only 14 when he began playing in the house band at the Montmartre Jazzhuis in Copenhagen on New Year's Eve 1961, working regularly with the pianists Kenny Drew Jnr and Tete Montoliu. Backing American jazz greats was a dream for most of his contemporaries, but, already eloquent in Bebop, Ørsted Pedersen took it for granted when he worked with them at the Jazzhuis:

"You would play, say, two weeks with Stuff Smith, and then it could be Freddie Hubbard, then Kenny Dorham or Bud Powell. It could be Dexter Gordon, Yusef Lateef, Johnny Griffin or Joe Henderson."

He was 17 when he turned down the first invitation from Count Basie to join the Basie band because he was too young to get a work permit in the United States:

"The second time I was offered the job I had been at the American embassy here in Denmark and I was told that if I took up permanent residency in the States I might be drafted into the Vietnam War. I didn't fancy that so I stayed in Denmark."

The youngest of five children, he was the only one who became a professional musician, although his mother had forced them all to study music. His father was headmaster at a boarding school and his mother played piano for the morning hymns. Niels-Henning began on piano, but his siblings played other instruments and decided that they needed a double bass, so he made the switch. Concerned when he became so much in demand at the Jazzhuis, his mother went with him one evening to see what kind of company he kept. She was confronted with the [edit] impaired genius pianist Bud Powell. "You're OK," she told Niels-Henning. "He's nice. Good eyes."

Ørsted Pedersen went on to record with Powell, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk, Don Byas and most of the top American soloists who came to Europe. He played regularly with Dexter Gordon, breaking off to tour Europe for a week in a quartet led by the pianist Bill Evans that included the altoist Lee Konitz.

His worldwide fame was entrenched when he joined the pianist Oscar Peterson in 1972 and toured the world with the Peterson Quartet. Taken up by the impresario Norman Granz, at one Montreux Jazz Festival in the Seventies he recorded seven live albums for Granz's Pablo label in two days. His fellow musicians included Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Harry Edison, Benny Carter and Peterson. By the time he left Oscar Peterson in 1987 he had appeared on about 400 albums. Thereafter he led his own trios, mainly with European musicians. Based in Copenhagen, he also taught at the Rytmiske Musikkonservatorium.

Ørsted Pedersen used the same bass for 40 years and his dexterity on it was breathtaking. On one of his albums he played incredibly on some transcriptions of Paganini violin pieces and had early on developed his own pizzicato techniques using three or four fingers of his right hand. He was also masterful in his use of the bow.

- Steve Voce

[Mike Schwartz]

"NHOP or Niels-Henning, the two short forms universally used in the lazy world of jazz..."


????

[ole hall]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

That's terrible! What a mighty bassist he was!

Does anyone know how he died?

he died in his bed from a heartstroke
ole hall
denmark
yes he was great - and a nice and kind person

[frankiepop]

i havent heard a lot of nhøp ....but
the Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark recording is my favorite nhøp performance
tivoli is also my favorite performances for grappelli and joe pass....

i love this recording...

[bicho]

hello,
here is an interesting interview with "the great dane". i have it from the french "jazz hot" magazin:

Niels-Henning ØRSTED PEDERSEN
Swing from Denmark

Few musicians in jazz have recorded more at such a constantly high level of musicianship than Niels-Henning Ørsted-Pedersen. And yet the great Dane comes from such a different culture ! A lucid and serene musician who can boast a unique carreer, he told us about his cultural background. Just a tiny portion of his collaborations would feature names such as Kenny Drew, Bud Powell, Anthony Braxton, Chet Baker, Count Basie, Bill Evans, Sahib Shihab, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Niels Lan Doky, Ben Webster, Albert Ayler, Tete Montoliu, Monty Alexander, Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk, Stephane Grappelli, Milt Jackson, Count Basie, Clark Terry, Palle Mikkelborg, Johnny Griffin, Oscar Peterson, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins… It would be difficult to imagine a more eclectic or more essential who’s who of jazz. being such a precocious young talent enabled him to meet musicians that he might otherwise have missed. These encounters have given him a philosophy of life inspired by self-knowledge and listening to other people. Perfectly at ease in a world at variance with his, he became a master of his instrument in a spectacular way and took advantage of a singular cultural and family background to build a personal approah to music. He became an inspiration for other bassists like Brian Torff or Mads Vinding. Speed and depth of sound, mellowness and precision make him instantly recognizable. With the notable exception of George Mraz, he is among the very few European plaayers to have gained such a reputation as a rhythm player. We met him last summer shortly before a concert with Oscar Peterson and found a calm person lacking neither humour or seriousness about his craft.

An interview with Jean Szlamowicz


NHOP : I was born 27th may 1946 in a small village called Osted in Denmark. My father was the principal master of a boarding school based on the Danish tradition of a philosopher and priest from the XIXth century. We lived in the school, it’s a very special upbringing, let’s put it that way. The whole principle of that kind of school is that you learn according to your abilities not according to what society demands of you. It’s a very open school. Maybe you can compare it a little to Rudolf Steiner.

Jazz Hot : Do you feel it shaped you in some ways?
Oh yes, in many ways. One peculiar idea of this philosopher was that you would sing a lot of songs. Denmark has a great tradition of songs reflecting the seasons and also evening, morning, etc. So everyday, the school started at eight o’clock singing and finished at night with a couple of songs, as well as songs for various events of the day. Music as part of everyday life was part of that system. The music was Danish songs, the only composer you would know in that genre is Carl Nielsen, a classical composer who wrote about a hundred melodies in that vein.

What other source for music was around?
My mother played organ for the church where my sister is now. And my older brothers - I’m the youngest of five - were heavily into jazz. So consequently I don’t remember not hearing jazz or classical music or that folk music. It’s been around me in all different kinds of ways from the start.

How did you pick up the bass?
To make a long story short, my mother decided that we should all take piano lessons when I was six. We didn’t really have to practice if didn’t feel like it but we had to go to that teacher, once a week in a close town and spend half an hour. I was out-competed by a friend of mine, piano player Ole Kock Hansen, who was to become the conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band. So my brothers who didn’t want our social life to be disturbed, decided they needed a bass player because they had already picked up trumpet, sax, etc. So I picked up the bass at the age of twelve and my parents let me have it on condition that I should take lessons - that’s very good advice if you want to play an instrument that’s so physically demanding if you don’t want to make too many mistakes. I made my first recording and was a professional player when I was 14. So as I was finishing school, eighth, ninth and tenth grade, I was playing three nights a week in a night club in Copenhagen. They appointed the piano player to be my guardian because I was really young..

Was there much of a jazz scene at the time?
It started out in the late fifties. Stan Getz got married to a Swedish woman and he like Copenhagen very much. There was a fairly rich guy who wanted to build a club on the model of what existed in France and in the States who opened up the Montmartre. Oscar Pettiford came to live in Copenhagen too at that time. But Stockholm started a little earlier and Copenhagen sort of copied Stockholm a bit. But then I was playing with the leading Danish jazz group in an other jazz club but the first Montmartre closed down for a little while. Then it was bought by the owner that made it famous, Herlufkamp Larsen. With the drummer, William Schiöpffe, and the pianist, Bent Axen, we went to the Montmartre and became the house rhythm section. This was in 1960 so when the Montmartre opened in 1962, that’s when Bud Powell came in Copenhagen, that’s when I played with him at the age of fifteen.

Were there other bass players or did they have no other choice but a teenager?
(Smiles) I’m not the right person to ask but I can tell you there were other bass players! Except they preferred me at the time…

How did you learn the bass?
I’m classically trained. The conservatory teacher I had for five years was the principal bass player for the Royal Philharmonic. Jazz was… as it came. My brothers kept playing those albums like “Sent for You Yesterday and Here you come Today” by Count Basie with Jimmy Rushing in 1939 with “Swingin’ the Blues”, “Jeep’s Blues” with Ellington, Art Tatum and “Tea for Two”, Errol Garner…

How come you were not attracted to develop a career in classical music?
I was and I am attracted to classical music. I don’t know what to call myself, really. I’m equally attracted to classical music, jazz, fusion, folk music… At some point, I could have made a classical career but that would have meant restricting myself. It would mean being in a symphonic orchestra, going to work, for rehearsal every morning… I never felt attracted to that kind of life. Probably because I came from the background I came from. Music is a very wide spectrum for me. Even when people talk about me as a jazz musician, I feel it’s a restriction because there are so many other things that interest me in music and I have recorded so many other things. Of course the focus will be on me working with Bud Powell or Oscar Peterson but nobody knows that I was also in fusion bands when I was 17, doing a lot of recordings with fender bass, that I have been playing in symphony orchestra, chamber music. Nobody knows about that outside Denmark.

Was going for the jazz life a break from your background?
No, no. I floated into life (laughs). When I read biographies saying “and then suddenly he decides to become a jazz musician”. I never did that, it just happened. I was still going to school when I had that offer from the Count Basie orchestra when I was 17. Basie heard me when I was working with Quincy Jones, with his European band. And my father, although he was a teacher, he took me out of school, he said I shouldn’t miss an opportunity like that. I was supposed to go to the States with Basie but we found out that because I was under age I couldn’t have a work permit. I more or less panicked, because I wanted to go to the university and study literature and history - maybe music. You don’t know much about anything when you’re 17 and when it comes to taking a decision. Some people do but I didn’t. It was good for me that my father told me to go ahead. I went back to school the following year to try to complete but then the Danish Radio Big Band started and I was playing full time at the Montmartre. So I stopped, I simply couldn’t carry on with my studies.

Who was around at the time in Copenhagen?
Sahib Shihab, Idrees Sulieman, Kenny Drew, Dexter Gordon, Stuff Smith, Ben Webster… they lived in Denmark, off an on but most of the time they would be in Denmark. And then Tootie Heath, who was living in Gottenburg came to live in Copenhagen for about a year, later on Ed Thigpen came, Horace Parlan, Duke Jordan… Lots of people! And even those who didn’t live there, like Don Byas, who was living in Holland, they would come to Copenhagen and we would be touring in the festivals.

Did you realise the exceptional character of what you were going through?
At the time maybe I didn’t, although I do now. I remember Vi Redd, the Hampton sax player, the first female saxophone player I’ve seen, she came with Rex Stewart. When I look back on that, everything was so different at the time. And that was one thing that I knew by instinct - that I was working with personalities. Some people say “I’m a bebop player” or “I’m a mainstream player”. That kind of thing never really entered my mind because when you hear Ben Webster play a ballad and you sit right behind him, you don’t think about whether he plays like Coltrane or in what school. You focus on him because, believe him, there’s a lot of awe and charisma about someone like that. And then when the next week you were working with Stuff Smith, the same thing happened! He was not the corny violinist that I heard some people say, he could swing like mad!! I know that some of my colleagues then and today, asked me why I played with people who were not hip. For whatever reason, maybe because of my upbringing, I never had blinkers, maybe it wasn’t hip but it was good.

You never thought in terms of free jazz, straight ahead, etc.…
I have never been able to be a member of a movement. When you hear Bud Powell, it convinces you. You don’t think of that, you think of what he is playing now. And that goes for most of these people. Of course there were some mediocre players, others who were just o.k. But when you play three months in one stretch, six nights a week with Dexter in the summertime, you knew you were playing with one of the giants. Sonny Rollins came over for three weeks at the Montmartre, you go in there every night thinking “Jesus Christ!”.

You’re probably the only European player who was able to get the best possible teaching of the time…
I would say so too. Yusef Lateef came over three months in a row. He would play oboe, strange meters 7/8, etc. but then at the end of the night he would pick up his tenor and play a blues. I still recall that. Freddie Hubbard came, Wayne Shorter came, Griffin came, every body came. I’m so grateful that I never thought to ask myself where do I belong, do I play swing, what kind of music do I play? No, I play with people. And that what I’ve done ever since. One night you can play with Ben Webster who will bring tears to your eyes and one night with Freddie Hubbard who will knock you out but it’s one and the same feeling to some extent, just done in a different way.

Were there problems initially due to your age?
Occasionally but don’t forget that very early Kenny Drew came in Copenhagen and Kenny and I were like this, very very close. Friends from the first day. So, with those who had an attitude, and since English wasn’t my first language I sometimes felt a bit of pressure. But Kenny would always be there to say to me “give the man a couple of nights, he comes straight from New York, he used to fight for his life, he doesn’t know it’s okay here.” And sure enough, that alliance between Kenny and I lasted till he died. If something got out of control, he would be there and in ten years of playing the Montmartre we had only maybe two or three artists that caused problems. The rest was perfect. Because when they realised we could play and that the owner, Herlufkamp Larsen, was ready to sell all his private property to pay salaries, that there was none of that American club-owner stuff where you would doubt ever getting your money, they did relax.

That’s why there were so many things going on…
Herlufkamp Larsen was just interested in music. He was the first to bring over Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, I played with him and recorded with him. I am again very happy that I didn’t refuse although I had probably played with Don Byas a week before. You get this fantastic opportunity to enter the music not on your own conditions - because your own conditions will always be limited - but through someone else. Don Cherry, Archie Shepp also came. I remember Archie suggested “Without a Song” and he said “we’ll play it up half-step every chorus”! When you think of it, you can’t even do it with a lot of musicians today! Since nobody had told us it was difficult or impossible, we just took it as a something we had to do and we did it! I’m not saying we sounded great but we did it, we didn’t question it. Albert Ayler wanted to play “Billie’s Bounce” and he didn’t play the line the way it’s supposed to be. I heard it recently and realised that in fact he counted on me to play the melody: he was leaning towards the melody. I didn’t ask any question about “please can we play the tune correctly”, I just followed because that was the way he went!

Did that attitude make you grow?
Definitely! Since Kenny was there it was never presented like “Can you play this shit or can’t you?”. I never had that. Kenny was a great piano player first, great human being and he had perfect pitch. I could always turn to him and he would never tell me “man, you’re supposed to know this shit!” He took away an awful lot of the pressure.

So that you had the musical challenge but not the personal pressure…
No, and don’t forget I went home every night. I never had to experience being alone in a hotel room in New York. Whenever all of this craziness went on - ‘cause there was a lot of craziness - I still had to go to school the next morning. So even when I was hanging out, I would have to go home and get some sleep and go to school, to a completely different world. And then go back to this other world at night - that’s a very good experience.

What made your relationship with Kenny Drew so special?
He was such a warm person. I won’t go into him being the best pianist of all time, because there is no such thing. He had that rare combination of playing the way he was, very soulful, very warm, very humorous. He was a brilliant technician.

He had his own style, with runs on the right hand…
Oh yeah. He was fantastic. At some point he had a success recording for the Japanese and we went on tour once a year in a Japan, that’s how he made a living. He sold more records than anybody else in Japan, they loved him!

Back to you at 18…
When I was 18 and I could get a work permit, the offer with Count Basie was repeated but there was too much going on in Copenhagen. I’m happy about it because I got to play and record with Basie later and I played with his big band once at a jam session in Munich - a fantastic experience! We did an album in Las Vegas, after he had his stroke, he couldn’t really play any more but his presence! People wonder how could he shape a big band, be the leading figure, well, you just had to be around him as a person for fifteen minutes to understand. He didn’t write the arrangements, he didn’t conduct as such, Marshall Royal was conducting. But he was there. Between him and Freddie Green, there’s a time thing shared by two people, it’s so heavy, that you realise oh oh, no funny shit now, this is where it’s at! But when I was 17 rather than go with Basie and play the same repertoire for 4-5 months, I got to experience many different players by staying in Copenhagen. Three weeks with Joe Henderson, three weeks with Phil Woods, and so on!

The thing is a lot of this music did get recorded!
Yeah it’s coming out right now, the archives of the Danish Radio are filled with music. They just put out another one we did with Ben Webster.

Did you think of playing as a leader or were you overwhelmed with your work as a sideman?
Everybody is a bit lazy and if you don’t have a lot of ambition and you find life interesting, then maybe what you’re just satisfied with it and I probably had it like that for many many years. It’s only as of the last 4 or 5 years, since I turned 50, that there are certain things I don’t do any more. I’m glad I did them when my ego wasn’t as big as it is today (laughs) because in those days I just enjoyed hearing different people. It’s interesting to play with different people, you pick up a lot when you play with someone. You don’t have to like all of it but you try and understand how he makes it work. Now that I mention Phil Woods, the resemblance with Ben Webster is something interesting, same with Chet Baker: it’s the sound that matters. For other players, it’s the chops that carry the music and there’s nothing wrong with that. And if you analyse each person you play with, you understand what makes their music function. How does he make it work? Like Count Basie - he’s a time-keeper like you wouldn’t believe. He can establish a groove that will make two thousand people jump in their seats with two notes! That’s what I find interesting in the music. Not whether they play in any particular style or whether they have chops or not, it’s the combination between the magic and the person.

Are there still people of that stature, in terms of strong characters?
No. I’m 57 and coming from someone of my age, it will probably sound like I’m lamenting on the old days. But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that in the history and development of everything in society, even politicians, it’s more important how you look than what message you have to deliver. The same is true of actors and so on: the talk-show is where you sell the film or the party you are promoting. But they all look the same because it’s the image they have created. And unfortunately, the same is happening to music. A lot of people think in terms of “concept”, like “what concept should we make this next record from?”. Whereas, if you look back on he past, someone like Ben Webster probably didn’t know what the word “concept” meant, I’m sure, but he just played a certain way. And if you reflect, you can say what his concept was, but he didn’t start out with a concept in the first place to apply it to the music - he was just himself. The older I get, the more I see that. Some people realise that they need to have personality! It’s almost as if they are looking up in the dictionary what it means! They’ll take a course in personality and one in business, communication and styling!… (laughs and suddenly becomes very serious) The person I’m working with tonight, Oscar Peterson, has had a stroke. He is 77, he is in a wheelchair. Under normal circumstances you would say that he should retire. But when you see his eyes, you realise his willpower, his will to play. I was supposed to go on vacation tomorrow. I wasn’t supposed to play. But, for him… I wouldn’t let him down. You have to appreciate the people who want to play. He doesn’t have to, he wants to play, he wants to sit down and get this done.

That’s what an artist really is, someone who plays for a good reason…
Someone who puts life at risk every time he goes to the bandstand. Don’t forget the pressure he’s putting on himself. He could take off all of the pressure if he wanted to. He could retire, play a little bit at home - but no, the man puts pressure on himself.

Life was supposed to be more difficult in the seventies, how did you develop as an artist at that time?
I used to say that I played to live and not the opposite. When you’re married and have three children, there are certain things in your private life that have an impact. You can be an artist but they still have to go to school, have a place to live and so on. So you can be an artist in your own imagination but daily life is part of it too. And certain people would say, “you’re not a true artist”. Someone has been writing a book about me at home, so that’s why I know the subject a bit now. Some people live to play and I sort of toyed with the idea that I played to live. I never really lived to play as such because my family was equally important, because life is equally important. But me just staying at home also sounded false to me. So I took me a longer time than other people to realise that I lived and played. Once I have reached that status… again, I should have been on vacation, but it’s also important for me to be here today. I’m not saying this is going to be the best concert ever, I’m just saying I want to be around people who feel sincere about the music. Which means that bands who want to go for the “Italian mood” or “French mood” or “Spanish” or “Nordic” - Nordic is in at the moment! (smiles) You can never make me do that. I will be around people who want to play. Even at a time when they have lost some of their capability, now it’s the mind.

What makes someone swing for all those years?
Again, I live and play. When you play music it’s the same as trying to communicate, as we are doing now. In music, there’s a lot of things you can’t explain, that’s complete magic. But then you also have straight-ahead craftmanship. I’m famous for playing fast, but the point was not to play fast, it was about talking that language: if you want to communicate and you can’t say what you think there’s a problem! So I could see a practical use for having technique and playing fairly well in tune. But at the same time it is a language - to go on playing is to go on living. (pauses) I became a grandfather, a year-and-a-half ago and it changes your life because all of a sudden there’s someone experiencing everything again. I lived a lot of my life through them - you don’t realise that but they go to school, you get involved, you try and write a better essay than them! (laughs) There’s a little new guy who comes in and is interesting in music and there you go all over again. What would drive me out of music and what would make me lose interest in music, and that happens from time to time, inevitably, is if I had to play always the same thing. Again, it’s like being a member of a movement, it becomes formulaic, it’s like you’re delivering a show. The funny part is when you don’t really know what’s going on. With Oscar, we don’t know what we’re going to play. And I like it! (laughs) I like it better than when I know what we’re gonna play, it’s nice to be in the middle of nowhere, you can change things.

How did you build up your personal sound and style?
I didn’t work on a particular kind of sound but I paid particular attention to the persons that I played with. Like Chet Baker, you just need to hear a couple of notes and that’s his thing! He comes in with an awful lot. Playing with Ben was like that too. He would just construct the melody in such a way that his sound would fit. He didn’t have a lot of chops when he was older but he had the sound. What you use to express yourself is the sound. It’s like Oscar’s touch; his left hand is not what it used to be but his right hand is really something! Same with Keith Jarrett or Bill Evans. If you want to play something that means anything to you, you need to have a sound that you can stand. So I’ve been trying to shape a sound of my own.

Although you’ve played with a lot of people, is there a family of musicians that you feel more comfortable with?
I’m repeating myself - personalities. At the moment I’m playing a lot with Palle Mikkelborg. We play trio, him on synthesisers and his wife playing harp and some pre-recorded tapes. But it’s a personal understanding, we don’t have to use the same language - his language is much more electronic than mine. But I enjoy going into some body else’s world. I don’t have to understand it and analyse it. But I’m glad when some body takes my hand to lead me to a different world. I play a lot with Ole Kock Hansen. I also play a lot with Mulgrew Miller. That probably represents the future for me. Could be with Alvin Queen or in a duo. We just did a recording of Duke Ellington’s compositions. Mulgrew has he same thing that Kenny had. It’s the same things that’s happening with a twenty or thirty years delay. He’s brilliant, he listens, we never have to talk about what tune we’re going to play and how we’re going to treat it because it’s always going to be different. It’s a mutual thing and on a personal level, he’s got the same qualities that Kenny had.

What’s your music with your trio with Ulf Wakenius?
I’ll play some parts of Bach’s cello suite solo, some of my compositions, a little bit of folklore, a few standards. I use the same principle: they don’t know what I’m gonna play. And it’s not necessarily going to be jazz.

What are the essential elements of jazz?
The right to develop your own language.

Within the language of jazz?
Not necessarily. Drawing inspiration from Brazilian music, classical music, etc. The interesting thing is not to repeat the Jazz Messengers, like some bands do. Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard were great players but does that mean that we need to have the gut strings on the bass, old drum set and do he same thing? I have too much respect for the people who did that originally that I think you should leave it alone. It’s been done as well as it could be done. The inspiring thing is that what they came up with something that had to do with who they were. Go in there, find yourself! The record companies look at success from the past and try and recreate the recipes. That’s anti-jazz, you’re not supposed to recreate. You can’t have the Woody Herman orchestra today because he’s dead. You can’t have another Errol Garner , it’s gone.

Any form of contemporary music is now called jazz, how do you deal with that?
That’s a problem. I would say I’m trying to incorporate things from the outside into jazz; in that sense I’m a jazz player. Because the language I use is based on the blues and definitely based on swing. I try and use the beauty of Brazilian music, the laid-back feeling, as opposed to the aggressiveness of certain bebop things. I have nothing to be aggressive about, so it would be funny if I tried to be. And of course, I can’t run away from my heritage; there are lots of songs that I have to play because they’re obvious to me. Nor can I hide my love of classical music: Bach probably wrote the best solos ever played because they all make sense. You can become a victim and a hostage of the past in that you have to go back to the roots. Whose roots? Maybe you have to go back to your own roots. You can’t go back to Charlie Parker’s roots because they belong to him. You have to be you.

As a European, do you feel you come from a different history?
Oh yes. I was born in Denmark, a peaceful country, in the country, after World War II. How could I be aggressive? How could I be racial? I’ve never felt that pressure. That’s why I feel a lot of black American players have all the reasons to feel that way and be possibly aggressive because it’s true to their circumstances but it wouldn’t be true to my circumstances. So I would not be looking for my own roots, I would be trying to adopt someone else’s roots. First I can’t and then it would be very false. It’s like I have very mixed feelings about what they call “Nordic” jazz. What is “Nordic”? There was an Italian guy who said “Is that music that doesn’t swing and uses a lot of reverb?” That’s very close to the point! (laughs a lot). Once again, you can’t buy identity, you can’t buy a personality. If you try do to so, maybe you can put it together and it will last for a little while but sooner or later people will look through.

Jazz has produced a universal language that people have adopted to project their angers and joys…
It’s true for many things. If you think of Stravinski’s 9th Symphony about Leningrad. It’s supposed to express a certain anger. That’s what music is all about. If you can tell a story inside the music. The problem is when you’re trying to tell someone else’s story. If you feel aggressive, you can adopt that attitude. That doesn’t mean that everyone can adopt it.

There’s no good and bad art in a way: art is always a reflection of what you’re about…
That’s exactly what I’m trying to say all the time. If it doesn’t reflect you as a person, then you have a problem. The magic element is always what’s most difficult to describe. What makes Basie magic? Why is it so fascinating to play with Basie? Is it that plays a 16th note delayed? No - it’s because he’s Basie and he lets Basie come out. Oscar doesn’t sound like Basie, Tatum doesn’t sound like Oscar. Because they’re different, but you have the same feeling. The same is true in classical music. If you hear Vladimir Horowitz, the concert that he played when he came back at the Moscow conservatory. I saw it in Germany and I cried! There’s this old frail man, makes a lot of mistakes - but the expression! And I heard an interview with a journalist who was kind of eager to have him admit that he made mistakes. And he said, “Yes, but I’m Horowitz!”

Hawkins said “If you don’t fuck up it means you’re not trying!”
That’s true! If you walk up on the bandstand and you don’t want to communicate, there’s no sense in getting up there. You have to try and reach people and make your story clear. I’m just taking the consequences of that. That’s why I know I need technique, a good sound. But at the same time, I also know that if I have nothing to tell, nothing that tickles me, what’s the point? That’s why I need to play with different people, to get the same kick in a different way. If you’re working on a formula, with the help of a good stylist, you’re creating a product. If you take Diana Krall, they’re trying to recreate new copies of her who is already a copy of Nat Cole and tunes from another era! It’s really strange! In my experience it works just the other way round - it’s when people are concerned about what they play that the music works. There are lots of people who think they play like Oscar. I get a lot of calls saying “I know all the arrangements by Oscar”. Whenever they say that, I’m not coming - ‘cause I play with the real thing!! When he plays the sort of blues you heard at the sound check, you can’t hear that with anybody else. I’m sorry but that is him. That is why I’m here. that’s why we did a tour in Japan - it’s hard work, he’s in a wheelchair but whenever he goes to the band stand, he goes for broke. He plays mistakes, but he’s Oscar!




keep swingin´
marcel

[Richardo Caerleoni]

an interview with nhop

bicho - hello,
here is an interesting interview with "the great dane". i have it from the french "jazz hot" magazin:

Bicho, that's a remarkable interview and a great tribute to a great musician (and person)...Many thanks for posting it.

RC.

[bicho]

hello richardo,
yeah i think that this interview is more interesting than other writings. (in his own words, quasi). it´s from the french "jazz hot" magazin web site. unfortunately this magazin is only in french and not easy to read (for me.....) but they have often good cd´s as a "give away".

btw, do you rembember the "bird still lives" tread a few weeks ago? i try to contact you, but unfortunately the "privat message" function don´t work anymore. (or am i on your "ignore members" list?) :-) i have some questions about your mother-in-law and the bird. i would be happy if you can contact me:

bichos@gmx.de

keep swingin´
marcel

[Chris Stark]

Truly terrible news. I'm 17 and have only had the chance to listen to his music for 2 or 3 years - have tickets supposed to see him with oscar in london on july 1st. Couldn't believe it. Have no idea why his passing touched me so much. A brilliant musician - no other bass players around that come close to his incredible technique and subtleness.

[jazzaoxon]

So sorry to hear of Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen passing just now on Jazz Record Requests (BBC Radio 3, UK). I was lucky enough to see him playing with Oscar Petersen at Ronnie Scott's (London) in 1975. A truly memorable brilliant evening and the sounds have never left me.

A very sad loss for the jazz world.

[Richardo Caerleoni]

Originally Posted by jazzaoxon

So sorry to hear of Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen passing just now on Jazz Record Requests (BBC Radio 3, UK). I was lucky enough to see him playing with Oscar Petersen at Ronnie Scott's (London) in 1975. A truly memorable brilliant evening and the sounds have never left me.

A very sad loss for the jazz world.

Jazzaoxon...That JRR request ..."Have you met Miss Jones", with Joe Pass...was from me ! [Richard & Anna] and someone else...

A great bass player and a great person...much missed.

RC.