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Trygve Seim

Trygve Seim was born in Oslo in 1971, and took up the saxophone at the age of 14. His earliest inspirations were, he says, Jan Garbarek, electric Miles Davis, and ECM's documentation of European improvising. Seim studied jazz at the Trondheim Conservatory. During those studies he met pianist Christian Wallumrod, co-producer of the present disc and an ECM artist in his own right (see “No Birch” ECM 1628) and together they formed the group Airamero, which made Scandinavian tours with Kenny Wheeler and played in Germany with Nils Petter Molvaer. In 1992, Seim, now based back in Oslo, joined the “little big band” Oslo 13 and appears on its 1993 album “Live”; when leader Jon Balke left the group in 1995, Seim and fellow saxophonist Morten Halle became the ensemble's principal composers.

In 1993, Seim co-founded the quartet The Source, a group originally rooted in the free jazz tradition but which has since developed a personal style of its own. The Source has played several concerts in which they are joined by the Cikada String Quartet (the classical ensemble that has appeared on ECM recordings by Bent Sørensen, Annette Peacock, Arild Andersen and Mats Eden). A Source/Cikada album will be issued by ECM in 2001. 1993 was also the year in which Seim launched the Trondheim Kunstorkester, a large ensemble containing many of the players now featured on “Different Rivers”. “We started as a free music orchestra. I would just write small themes and then we would improvise: all of us were in the free music area at the time. In recent years, structure has become more important to me, and some of the pieces we play now are totally composed.”

In 1995, Trygve Seim played with the great Finnish drummer Edward Vesala (”Edward was very important for my musical development”), and they talked about forming a trio with Iro Haarla on harp and piano. In 1999 the project-in-progress was expanded to quartet-size with the addition of Anders Jormin on bass, and rehearsals began in earnest. The group played compositions by Seim with a melodic, freely expressive approach, as well as material by Haarla and Jormin, and radical re-workings of “standards” (if the term applies) by Legrand and Handel. A debut concert at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in July 1999, showed a group full of promise which was never to be fulfilled. Edward Vesala's sudden death, in November of that year, closed this chapter. Source: ECM Records

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Album Review

Sinikka Langeland: Wind And Sun

Read "Wind And Sun" reviewed by Scott Gudell


Pause. Trust your inner self to guide you. Prepare to avoid the constant bombardment of a multitude of society's mind and body piercing assults. If you're not sure where to start, Sinikka Langeland is willing to help guide you. A master of the kantele (a Nordic instrument with similarities to plucked string instruments such as a zither or dulcimer,) Langeland has released a dozen albums since the mid-1990s with Wind and Sun being the 2023 addition to her canon.

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Album Review

Sigurd Hole: Roraima

Read "Roraima" reviewed by David Bruggink


Norwegian upright bassist Sigurd Hole has stood out in the recent past as both a contributor (with his elegant performance on Tord Gustavsen's 2018 ECM album, The Other Side) and bandleader (through his 2018 Elvesang album Encounters). His solo explorations are equally noteworthy, as on the wide-ranging double album Lys / Mørke (Elvesang, 2020). Recorded on the remote arctic islands of Fleinvær, he thoughtfully probed the relationship between the high-pitched harmonics and drones of his instrument and the spectral winds ...

1
Album Review

Trygve Seim: Helsinki Songs

Read "Helsinki Songs" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


È molto lirico questo Helsinki Songs, ultimo lavoro del sassofonista norvegese Trygve Seim, ormai pilastro dell'etichetta ECM sia per presenza nel catalogo, sia per come contribuisce a svilupparne l'estetica. Qui il musicista scandinavo si presenta per la prima volta alla testa di un classico quartetto, che vede al pianoforte Kristjan Randalu, quarantenne estone cresciuto in Germania, al contrabbasso il suo connazionale Mats Eilertsen e alla batteria il finlandese Markku Ounaskari. Il disco arriva a due anni dal riuscito ...

4
Album Review

Trygve Seim: Helsinki Songs

Read "Helsinki Songs" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Before revealing its more inert, contemplative rewards, Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim opens Helsinki Songs, his sixth disc for ECM as a leader/co-leader, with the rolling, pop-ish dance of “Sol's Song," sounding immediately recognizable, like a well-known theme song to some long gone sitcom or movie. Written mostly in the grand Finnish capital, Helsinki Songs' eleven ethereal compositions quietly reflect the moody, autumnal characteristics of their surroundings. To serve the songs and their heightened sense of time and space, ...

Album Review

Trygve Seim: Rumi Songs

Read "Rumi Songs" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Negli ultimi anni si sono moltiplicate in casa ECM produzioni nelle quali musicisti di estrazione jazz si uniscono ad altri di formazione classica per lavorare su progetti che a loro volta fondono il sacro e il profano, l'Occidente e l'Oriente. L'ultimo lavoro del sassofonista norvegese Trygve Seim appartiene senza dubbio a questo tipo di lavori, ma ha la caratteristica di essere un progetto di lungo corso, cosa dalla quale probabilmente dipende anche la sua eccellente riuscita. Si tratta ...

12
Album Review

Trygve Seim: Rumi Songs

Read "Rumi Songs" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim may lack the marquee status of countryman (and fellow ECM artist) Jan Garbarek. But he is no less adventurous, and has recently been popping up all over on 2016 ECM releases: on Mats Eilertsen's Rubicon; with Sinikka Langeland and the Trio Medieval on The Magical Forest; with Iro Haarla and symphony orchestra on Ante Lucem; and now on his own Rumi Songs. Seim composed his first settings of the poetry of 13th century poet and mystic ...

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Album Review

Trygve Seim / Andreas Utnem: Purcor: Songs for Saxophone and Piano

Read "Purcor: Songs for Saxophone and Piano" reviewed by John Kelman


Since emerging on the label with his own large ensemble and as part of the collaborative, more improv-heavy group The Source, saxophonist Trygve Seim has been a leading voice in the second wave of Norwegian artists who look to legacy ECM musicians like Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Terje Rypdal as touchstones, but possess unmistakable voices of their own. Albums like the superb Sangam (2005) spotlighted Seim's distinctive compositional approach, taking the unorthodox instrumentation of Edward Vesala (with whom Seim ...

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guitar, acoustic

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Wind And Sun

ECM Records
2023

buy

Roraima

Self Produced
2022

buy

Helsinki Songs

ECM Records
2018

buy

Rumi Songs

ECM Records
2017

buy

Rumi Songs

ECM Records
2016

buy

When The Heart Is The Moon

From: Wind And Sun
By Trygve Seim

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