The tempo of top jazz acts passing through Taiwan is slowly picking up. Within the past year, Charlie Hayden, Wynton Marsalis and a number of Japan's premier jazz musicians have played Taiwan venues. Tonight, Taiwan will receive another jazz messenger, when Neils-Henning Orsted Pedersen comes to the National Dr Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall with his trio.
Osted Pedersen, or NHOP -- as he is often referred to in print -- is one of the great living virtuosos of the double bass and an integral figure in the last four decades of jazz. His career, which began when he was a teenager, runs through jazz history like a lone thread through a piece of fabric. Born in 1948 in Denmark, NHOP made his first recording at the age of 13, played with famed bassist Bud Powell at the age of 16, and was offered a spot in the Count Basie Orchestra at the age of 17.
PHOTO COURTESY OF PARIS INTERNATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT
NHOP couldn't accept Basie's offer at the time, but many great things still lay ahead for him. He went on to play with many other jazz greats, finding the most formative engagements of his early career with Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Ben Webster and Oscar Peterson, with whom he played for 13 years until 1986. To list all the names with whom NHOP has collaborated over the years reads more or less like a jazz encyclopedia. In addition to those musicians already named, it includes Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Chet Baker, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis.
In all, NHOP has appeared on over 200 jazz albums and CDs, though he has released fewer than 20 recordings under his own name. Several of those, however, have come over the past few years, and NHOP will draw on this material for many of the numbers to be performed at the Sun Yat Sen concert hall tonight.
Though NHOP spent much of his career at the center of the ever-moving jazz scene, his more recent focus has returned to the music of Denmark and Scandinavia. Recent CDs have pursued Danish folk music, rearranging the age-old tunes according to jazz modalities. In the past, NHOP has also delved into classical music, playing the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach and Bela Bartok.
According to concert organizers, the NHOP trio's repertoire for this evening will include a combination of the Danish folk arrangements and classic jazz numbers.
Joining Osted Pedersen on stage tonight will be guitarist Ulf Karl Erik Wakenius and drummer Jonas Johansen. NHOP will man the double bass, plucking away in the unconventional style he has made famous -- that of holding his right hand above his left. Most bassists do it the other way around. After the single Taipei engagement, the trio will move on to Seoul for its next performance.
Performance Notes:
What NHOP Jazz Trio
When Tonight, 7:30pm
Where National Dr Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (國立國父紀念館), 505 Jenai Rd., Sec. 4 (仁愛路4段505號)
Tickets NT$300 - 1,500
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