Jan Garbarek (NO)

About

Also known as: Jan Garbarek Group

Jan Garbarek's saxophone sound is one of the most instantly recognizable in jazz: sharp, glassy, full of long keening notes with generous stretches of silence in between. The Norwegian saxophonist built his reputation on ECM Records, where he moved away from the harsher edges of avant garde jazz in the early 1970s and developed a style that critics have described as sculptural. His work with Keith Jarrett's European Quartet, heard on Belonging and My Song, brought him to a wider audience, and his 1976 ambient album Dis, featuring an actual wind harp, showed how far he was willing to push texture over convention. He draws heavily from Scandinavian folk melodies and has long woven in elements of world music, collaborating with musicians including Zakir Hussain and Hariprasad Chaurasia. The album that really crossed over was Officium in 1994, a meeting with the Hilliard Ensemble that layered his saxophone over medieval sacred music. It became one of ECM's best selling records ever and hit pop charts across Europe. Two follow ups followed over the years, with Officium Novum arriving in 2010. He also composed the score for the 2000 film Kippur, and in 2005 his album In Praise of Dreams earned a Grammy nomination.