Arild Andersen (NO)

About

Also known as: Arild Andreasson

Few bassists have shaped the sound of European jazz quite like Arild Andersen. The Norwegian double bass player spent the late 1960s and early 1970s at the heart of some genuinely formative groups, most notably the Jan Garbarek Quartet alongside Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen, and he was rubbing shoulders with heavyweights like Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, and Don Cherry before the decade was out. His range spans post bop, jazz fusion, and more adventurous avant garde territory, and ECM Records has been his main home for a long catalogue of leader dates stretching back to 1975. His band Masqualero picked up multiple Spellemannprisen awards across the 1980s and 1990s, and the French Académie du Jazz named him Musicien Européen in 2008. The live album Live at Belleville drew serious praise, with one critic calling it the best disc of his long career. More recently he recorded the trio album Pure and Simple with drummer Bob Moses and guitarist Samo Salamon, and the 2022 release Affirmation for ECM features an impressive lineup including saxophonist Marius Neset.