05/08/2024
Bobo Stenson at 80
The masterful Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, an ECM mainstay since the label’s early years, celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday with creativity undimmed.
Bobo was first heard on ECM in 1971, on three albums recorded within a five-month period: Jan Garbarek’s SART, Terje Rypdal’s eponymously-titled album, and Bobo’s own trio session Underwear with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen. By the mid-1970s the Jan Garbarek-Bobo Stenson Quartet (Witchi-Tai-To, Dansere) was among the most popular bands in Europe, headlining festivals and topping the jazz polls.
A generous contributor to the music of others, Stenson was Charles Lloyd’s right hand man through a series of historically-important albums beginning with Fish Out of Water in 1990. The pianist also played with Don Cherry – an old friend – on Cherry’s final recording Dona Nostra, and made decisive contributions to the music of another great trumpeter, Tomasz Stanko (Mattka Joanna, Leosia, Litania).
Over the last two decades, the Bobo Stenson Trio, with bassist Anders Jormin and drummer Jon Fält has become the optimum context in which to enjoy the full scope of Bobo’s improvisational open-mindedness. Very few bands have as broad a range. In performances and in the studio the trio might reference jazz from Ellington to Ornette to free improvisation or ‘classical’ expressions from Mompou, Satie and Bartók to Alban Berg and Charles Ives. World folk traditions are part of the story, too, with an emphasis on Scandinavian balladry, Cuban song, and more…
“We don’t have a way of playing ‘ready-made’,” Bobo has explained. “Things crystallize in the moment and we adjust to that. And that’s the quintessence. That’s the joy of playing together, to never do the same thing twice and to be determined about that.”
In practice, the absence of a plan has turned out to be the best plan of all, and the Stenson trio has shaped an organic identity from its stylistic freedom.
We look forward to more steadfast refusal of categorization.
Many happy returns, Bobo!
