Ever since it quietly emerged on the international scene in the late ‘60s; Scandinavian jazz carved out for itself a distinctive niche. Drawing on the influence of Miles Davis and Gil Evans; Scandinavian jazz embraced a free, spacious; experimental; and contemplative aesthetic. It has also been open to modern or contemporary classical music and collaborations with European folk and ethnic-musicians. This is not OUR Recordings first journey into Scandinavian Jazz; the critically acclaimed album Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart; with legendary trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg; has proudly taken its place with other genre-defying Scandinavian jazz classics. Composer; trumpet and flugelhorn player Jakob Buchanan writes music specifically with the musicians he is working with in mind. Joining him on this important project are regular collaborators the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen and percussionist Marilyn Mazur. Together they conjure landscapes of beauty, power and sometimes deep melancholy. Mazur’s panoply of percussion function as an emotional “basso continuo,” speaking a language built out of pure rhythm while Buchanan’s solos emerge almost like ancient cantilations from the choral/orchestral textures. The Aarhus Jazz Orchestra is carefully orchestrated; and the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir provides an aura of ethereal beauty to this soundscape song and wind. In every way; Buchanan’s Song & Wind is a worthy successor to his earlier award-winning Requiem; (also written with Marilyn Mazur and the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra in mind); a major work; expressive and full of beauty; drawing equally on the music of the past while charting a further course into the future.

All my life I have admired, studied and performed the music of the extraordinary Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). So, when I was offered the chance to publish a whole instrumental Piazzolla album of my own for the centenary of his birth, I decided to base my tribute solely on Piazzolla titles but… with a little something extra. I decided to design a varied and comprehensive listening experience - an hour of accordion solos, instrumental duos, and pieces that I arranged for accordion and a small ensemble as a tribute to the Master of Tango! The music is all Astor but with a touch of Bjarke here and there and maybe everywhere, in fact. There are no singers involved, but Piazzolla’s music sings, and our instruments sing, and at every corner there is melancholy, tripping feet, fast figures, and an atmosphere of Buenos Aires.” (Bjarke Mortense) All of Piazzolla’s more than 750 works are inextricably bound to an essential and unmistakable Argentinian identity. His output includes an opera, music for the theatre, film scores, concertos, chamber music and songs. He loved to startle the listener by spicing up his music with chromaticism, dissonance and abrupt surprises: yet Piazzolla paid homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on almost every page he ever wrote. In commemoration of the genius of Nuevo Tango the young Danish master of the modern accordion, Bjarke Mortensen and his friends serve up a true musical banquet that will satisfy all tastes.