Warner Asu: CD-levy Vuosi: 2022, 04.03.2022 Kieli: und
Swedish jazz pianist and composer Jacob Karlzon has been compared to luminaries such as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Sweden’s own legendary Jan Johansson.
Karlzon’s playing style oozes technical brilliance, rhythmic and harmonic complexity with a perfect feeling for form. Karlzon describes what drives him:
“We are a modern people with a long history, and it is precisely this which I want to reflect in my music. I am fascinated with the possibilities of new technologies but I also need warmth and a connection with the earth in order to feel happy.”
For a piano virtuoso, he likes to add edge; metal and electro all have their place in his music as well as folk songs from his Swedish homeland. With such an open attitude, Karlzon balances depth and musical ideas to achieve vibrant pulsating soundscapes ranging from light to energetic, fragile to powerful, organic to electronic, sometimes all at once. He calls this approach 'technorganic', a kind of improvisation which bursts out of conventional musical borders.
Karlzon's music sits at the intersection of cool Scandinavian sensibilities (space, melancholy and sensitivity) and their emotional opposites (heat and passion).
Karlzon’s powerful techniques and deep sensibility have made him a popular 'sideman' working together with stars like
Cæcilie Norby, Gino Vannelli, Nils Landgren, Till Brönner and Lisa Bassenge as well as being a sought after musical director for artists such as Viktoria Tolstoy .
Whilst he has a growing reputation as an ensemble performer, his personal projects have also received great recognition. In 2010 he was awarded the Swedish Django d'Or and voted Jazz Musician of the Year. In 2012 he was added to the Steinway Artist roster, an international recognition of excellence and in 2015 was acclaimed Jazz-group of the Year in the Swedish Radio’s audience poll.
"It's jazz of the finest kind, richly rhythmically varied and tastefully open to influences from pop and choral. Here is space and reflection but also heat and solo gems. To the extent that one can speak of urgency and purpose, it is here in a kind of timeless appeal and message, as with all good lyricism." - Ulf Johanson, Lira 1/2022.
