Home » Jazz Musicians » Jon Opstad

Jon Opstad

Jon Opstad was born in Bristol in 1983 to a musical family. His first introduction to jazz was at the age of seven on hearing Miles Davis's 'Kind of Blue' and John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme'. Studying first clarinet, piano and saxophone, Jon took up the drums at age 12. Starting composing in his teens, he was a finalist in the 2002 BBC Young Composer of the Year competition. Jon began studying music at Cambridge University in 2002 and recorded his first album 'Still Picture' the following year with some of the best student jazz musicians from Cambridge as well as younger brother James on fretless bass. Jon's main musical influences are Norwegian jazz, jazz on the ECM label and the music of Herbie Hancock amongst many others. His main influence as a drummer is Jon Christensen.

Tags

205
Album Review

Jon Opstad: Interpretations

Read "Interpretations" reviewed by John Kelman


For his second album as a leader and the third for his own New Canvas Records, British drummer Jon Opstad leaves behind the more overt ECM sensibility of 2004's Still Picture. Well, almost. Interpretations is ostensibly rooted in the music of late-1960s Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. The references are clear; still, the fluidity, sense of space and sonic transparency that pervades Opstad's septet suggests how classic albums like Hancock's The Prisoner (Blue Note, 1969) and Shorter's Schizophrenia (Blue Note, ...

145
Album Review

Jon Opstad: Still Picture

Read "Still Picture" reviewed by Eric J. Iannelli


Twenty-one-year-old British drummer Jon Opstad's full-length début is a remarkably accomplished effort, heavily indebted to the ECM sound--atmospheric, evocative, sparing--but nevertheless supremely listenable and full of promise.

Beginning with the introspective and melancholic “Fjord Song," the five tracks meld and blur into a unified sequence of sonic scenes and moods, fading and shifting like a photographic slideshow. Opstad's drumming here is delicate and often restrained, and his bandmates tend to follow suit. Soprano saxophonist Simon Cosgrove takes the song's only ...

208
Album Review

Jon Opstad: Still Picture

Read "Still Picture" reviewed by John Kelman


With its 35-year history of landmark recordings, it's no surprise that the German ECM label has spawned its share of imitators. But more importantly it has also encouraged more than one generation of artist, who see its cool, austere aesthetic as a starting point for new directions. From the Nordic cool of Jan Garbarek, the neo-classicism of Eberhard Weber and the melancholy lyricism of Kenny Wheeler, younger artists are forging new paths using ECM's delineated sound as inspiration.

British composer/drummer ...

Read more articles

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Interpretations

New Canvas Records
2007

buy

Interpretations

Shanachie
2006

buy

Still Picture

New Canvas Records
2004

buy

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.