Stian Carstensen

Stian Carstensen is a multiple prize-winning recipient of the Norwegian Music Industry Awards. He has collaborated with many renowned artists in a multitude of projects. Musically he is recognized for groundbreaking work blending together different styles and traditions to push the boundaries of what is considered feasible. He has received glowing reviews from critics and fans alike who warm to his affable and personal stage-performances.

Austrian violin virtuoso Benjamin Schmid about this recording: “after 30 years of playing the master, the time felt right to improvise on Bach: Bach as the inventor of “walking bass“; master of improvisation; figured bass and Realbook; swing of the centuries; variation as form; Sarabande and Blues; Aria and leadsheet; pedalpoint and modal jazz; counterpoint and voicing; Cantata and Gospel; ultimate chamber music….. I just followed the temptation and inspiration took over!“ Benjamin Schmid was born in Vienna and grew up in Salzburg. Among other competitions, he won the Carl Flesch Competition in London 1992, where he was also awarded the Mozart-, the Beethoven- and the Audience Prize.

Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick makes his ECM debut as a leader with this set, which features keyboardist Jon Balke and a guest appearance from Stian Carstensen - usually an accordionist, but here playing that jazz-band rarity, the pedal-steel guitar. Eick (who also plays vibes and guitar) has played with everybody from the pioneering Trygve Seim collective to Chick Corea, psychedelic group Motorpsycho and contemporary jazz-rock band Jaga Jazzist. His silky, unbrasslike sound is ideally suited to this undulating groove-landscape, and pianist Balke's apposite fills and asides help give the music a collective fluency. But there's more angularity in the rough offbeats and low keyboard grunts under Eick's airy lines on the funky Stavanger, the stately Cologne Blues is like a slowed-down Carla Bley piece (with Carstensen's steel guitar shimmering beneath it, and a probing Balke solo), and there's a folk song lilt to the mid-tempo Williamsburg. A lot of it is slow tone-poetry, but Eick's rather mournful, puffs-of-air sound is pretty captivating.

Born in 1968, Arve Henriksen studied at the Trondheim Conservatory from 1987-1991, and has worked as a freelance musician since 1989.