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Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen

The double bass came a long way in jazz between the 1930s and the 1960s, from plodding marker of the beat and the chord change to fully-fledged countermelodic, and sometimes even frontline instrument. The career of the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, who has died aged 58, was a product of that evolution and a significant contribution to it. In jazz circles, he was usually referred to simply as NHOP. He was a bass virtuoso, who made his unwieldy instrument sound almost impossibly agile. Like a finger-style guitarist, he could pluck the heavy strings with all four fingers of his right hand, where most bassists relied on repeated leverage from one finger, or two at the most. The turn of speed this gave NHOP allowed jazz's classic "walking bassline" to be played at the most frenetic tempos, and over sustained periods behind soloists. Orsted Pedersen was thus able to hold down one of the most demanding jobs in mainstream jazz, as regular bassist to Oscar Peterson, one of the fastest pianists in the business. This was a tough enough task even with other musicians around to help spread the load, but NHOP often kept Peterson company in that most unforgiving of improvising situations, the drummerless duo. When he took over the job with Peterson, his predecessor Ray Brown observed that the newcomer was the only bassist he could think of who would be quick enough to keep up with Peterson. Orsted Pedersen was born at Osted, the son of a church organist. He initially studied piano, and, from the age of 13, the double bass. By his mid-teens, he was good enough to accompany leading musicians in nightclubs, working regularly at Copenhagen's Montmartre Jazzhus after his debut there on New Year's Eve 1961, when he was only 15. The Montmartre was a regular stop-off for touring American stars, and, in the house band there, the young NHOP performed with saxophone legends such as Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stan Getz; and that poet of jazz piano, Bill Evans, with whom he toured in Europe in 1965. Orsted Pedersen had all the crucial qualities of a jazz double bassist - a big, rich sound, an improviser's melodic imagination, dexterity, soul, the ability to listen - but he seemed to have them in more liberal quantities than most. And although he was most frequently associated with standard songs, trusted chord changes and swing, he was musical enough - and curious enough - to be effective in many contexts, even with those unorthodox exponents of free-jazz saxophone, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler.

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Reassessing

Sahib Shihab and the Danish Radio Jazz Group

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Many jazz fans will know saxophonist and flautist Sahib Shihab primarily for his stint in the 1940s with Thelonious Monk, and his playing captured on Monk's Genius of Modern Music Blue Note sets. Keen-eyed perusers of liner notes, however, will know him as an able sideman on classic albums by John Coltrane, Quincy Jones, Art Blakey, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson and others. Shihab also recorded as a leader in the 1950s and 1960s with Savoy, Debut and Argo, before moving ...

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Tra gli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta del Novecento, una vorticosa accelerazione spinse le arti e alimentò la creatività verso esplorazioni audaci, esprimendo personalità e individualità di valore universale. Autentico visionario, tra urlo febbrile e tenera carezza, tra ruvida e profonda adesione alle radici afroamericane e tensione verso il futuro, tra riferimenti tematici trasfigurati, inni religiosi, marce bandistiche e dense campiture di puro suono che hanno la forza dell'espressionismo astratto, Albert Ayler attraversò come una meteora il firmamento della musica neroamericana, ...

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Read "Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


This landmark reissue contains consummately remastered cuts of the killer (among killers) track from Albert Ayler's relatively unknown My Name Is Albert Ayler (Debut 1964) plus the justly celebrated Spiritual Unity (ESP-Disk, 1965) in its entirety. Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited starts with “Summertime" from the 1964 album. In his survey The Jazz Standards (Oxford University Press, 2012), Ted Gioia writes that over 400 jazz covers of George and Ira Gershwin's song were recorded in the 1950s ...

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Though in many regards a standard, none-too-frenetic quartet setting, Dexter Gordon Quartet Tokyo 1975 is still as grand a starting point for Elemental Music's inaugural launch of previously unreleased jazz performances as can be. Gordon found himself exuberantly liberated from the antiquated (and sadly all too present) prejudices of America during his fourteen-year expatriation to Europe from 1962 to '76. Working and living primarily in Paris and Copenhagen, Gordon gigged and recorded with visiting friends and fellow expats ...

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Read "Tokyo 1975" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Elemental Music is a record label that can be uttered in the same breath with Omnivore Records and Resonance Records. These labels can be credited with significant additions to the universal jazz catalog. Near recent examples of unreleased performances put out by Elemental Music include: Art Pepper Live At Fat Tuesday's (2015) and Red Garland's Swingin' On The Korner: Live At Keystone Korner (2015), as well as Jimmy Giuffre: New York Concerts (2014). Elemental Music has since found ...

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Read "The Duo - Live!" reviewed by Chris Mosey


After admiring each other's playing from afar for years, Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and American pianist Mulgrew Miller got together in 1999 to record a promotional album of Duke Ellington numbers for the hi-fi company Bang & Olufsen. They enjoyed it so much that the following year they got together again for a world tour. This included the North Sea Jazz Festival at the Hague in Holland where the nine tracks on this fine double album ...

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Read "Sahib Shihab and the Danish Radio Jazz Group" reviewed by Douglas Payne


Sahib Shihab (1925-1989) played alongside such greats as Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, and Art Blakey in the 1940s and 50s. But in order to escape the racial problems in the United States and take advantage of the increased appreciation and opportunities for jazz abroad, he left for Europe and settled in Copenhagen in 1962. He became one of the featured soloists in the Clarke-Boland Big Band and joined the relatively young Danish Radio Jazz Group around the same ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Summertime To...

Ezz-thetics
2023

buy

On A Clear Day: Live...

Mack Avenue Records
2022

buy

Tokyo 1975

Elemental Music
2018

buy

The Duo - Live!

Storyville Records
2016

buy

Petrucciani NHOP 10th...

Dreyfus Records
2009

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