Jan Garbarek Group feat. Trilok Gurtu

The world-famous Norwegian saxophonist and composer Jan Garbarek is this year's guest of honor at the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. He began his jazz career in the 1960s and broke through internationally in the 1970s. On the opening night of the jazz festival, this great musician can be found on Ystads Teater's stage in an exceptional two-hour concert.

In addition to the bandleader, the Jan Garbarek Group includes the jazz pianist Rainer Brüninghaus from Germany, with roots in fusion jazz and collaborator of Jan Garbarek since 1988, the bassist Yuri Daniel from Brazil, who has been a band member for ten years, and the percussion magician Trilok Gurtu from India.

Jan Garbarek is a sensitive explorer in the world of music. He has a limitless approach to time and genres in his search for expression and timbre; his projects include jazz as well as classical music and world music. He describes his musical exploration as a constant movement: "At no point can you say 'Now I've arrived'."

The recordings have been many since the first one, which was made in the late 1960s. Already at this time, Jan Garbarek began his long collaboration with the record company ECM Records. His second album "Afric Pepperbird" (1970) became the first ECM production.

In the mid-1970s, Jan Garbarek was known and talked about in the jazz world. Through a collaboration with the American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, he would now reach wider fame and have his international breakthrough.

Jan Garbarek is also a well-known name in art music as a soloist with symphony orchestras. In early music, he has reached a new audience through an innovative collaboration with the famous a cappella quartet The Hilliard Ensemble. The result of the collaboration was the album "Officium" (1994), one of ECM's all-time biggest sales successes containing Gregorian chant and saxophone improvisations.

We return to Jan Garbarek's fellow musicians and begin with Trilok Gurtu. He is considered an innovator, even trailblazer, in percussion, as he incorporates many unconventional elements in order to develop his sound. The British newspaper The Guardian has described him as "an open-minded musician who embraces jazz, Indian classical music, abstract improvised music, Asian pop, a dazzling percussion virtuoso, an entertainer who reaches out".

Pianist and composer Rainer Brüninghaus has recorded five albums with Jan Garbarek. He has also had extensive collaborations with double bassist Eberhard Weber and performed with Carla Bley, Bobby McFerrin and Alphonse Mouzon with several jazz musicians.

Yuri Daniel is based in Portugal, where he has lived since the 1980s. He has appeared with many leading Portuguese and international artists, such as Wayne Shorter, Manu Katché and Ry Cooder. He has released the albums "South Way" (2010) and "Ritual Dance" (2015) under his own name.