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Pernille Bevort

Pernille Bévort
 - Tenor, soprano and alto saxophone, flutes, clarinets, band leader and composer. 

Danish saxophone player Pernille Bévort has always been a unique person on the Danish jazz scene.
She sets her own marks and stands proudly for her musical conviction. She is known for her intense and creative saxophone playing with everything from duos to big bands. In her music you constantly sense a clear and distinct direction; beautiful sonic timbres, exciting rhythmic and melodic progress and – above all – excellent solos.

Pernille Bévort is a graduate of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark (1989-1993). After completing her degree, she has become increasingly in-demand as a member of various jazz ensembles in Denmark and Sweden.

Apart from working with small ensembles, Bévort has performed with several professional Big Bands in Denmark during the last decades: The Ernie Wilkins Almost Big Band, Kroner's New Music Orchestra, The Danish Radio Big Band and the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra (Klüver's Big Band) among others.
As a member of The Ernie Wilkins Almost Big Band and as a frequent substitute with other professional big bands, she has performed with many international artists.
Among these are: Randy Brecker, Tony Coe, Putte Wickman, Tim Hagans, John Scofield and Richard Bona.

Since 2015 Pernille has been a regular member of the Swedish Monday Night Big Band in Malmö and from 2016 she has been playing several projects with another Swedish Big Band: the Bohuslän Big Band in Gothenburg. (One of the tours with BBB was in oct. 2017 with Maria Schneider).
She is also part of the new Danish 13-piece ensemble MALUBA with Marilyn Mazur, Fredrik Lundin and Kasper Bai as the 3 co-leaders and composers. This group had its debut during the Jazz festival in Copenhagen 2017.

 

Since 1995 she has been leader of several diverse ensembles.
At present these include her trio, Bévort 3, and the septet Radio Bévort.

Four years in a row (2020-2023) Pernille has been nominated for a Danish Music Awards Jazz within different categories (Composer of the Year, Album of the Year, Cross-aesthetic Album of the Year).
 

She and her trio Bévort 3 were awarded a grant as 'Band of the Year' (Danish Music Awards Jazz dec. 2022) and Nov. 21st, 2023 she received an honorary award from the Danish Conductor Association as an acknowledgement of her work.

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8
Album Review

Bévort 3: Northbound

Read "Northbound" reviewed by Ian Patterson


The seven-year itch between Bévort 3's debut recording, Trio Temptations (Gateway Music, 2014) and On Fire (Gateway Music, 2021) thankfully seems to have been a one-off. Just two years after Live 2020-2021 (Gateway Music, 2022), the trio led by renowned Danish saxophonist Pernille Bevort is back with Northbound. Once again, Bévort is joined by bassist Morten Ankerfeldt and drummer Espen Laub von Lillenskjold on a set that showcases the leader's distinctive compositions and the trio's vibrant interplay. Bévort's ...

7
Album Review

Bévort 3: Live 2020-2021

Read "Live 2020-2021" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Twenty-five years on from her debut, A Live (Music Mecca, 1997), recorded at Copenhagen's Jazzhaus, Danish saxophonist Pernille Bévort returns with another live outing. Live is only her second live recording as leader in that time, though 2021 did see the archival releases, in EP format, of a quartet performance from 1999 and another of Bévort heading a septet from 2002-2003. Live also marks the second release in fairly swift succession from Bévort 3, following 2021's self-produced On Fire, which ...

18
Album Review

Bévort 3: On Fire

Read "On Fire" reviewed by Ian Patterson


After a recording hiatus of seven years, Bévort 3, the trio led by Pernille Bévort, is back. Not that the Danish saxophonist-composer has been idling. Since the release of Trio Temptations (Gateway Music, 2014), Bévort has dedicated most of her energy to expanded line-ups. Which Craft? (Gateway Music, 2016) for octet and BLIK (Self Produced, 2020) for her Radio Bévort septet highlighted Bévort's penchant for arranging multiple voices—a fact recognized by the Danish Conductor's Association, which honored Bévort's achievements in ...

5
Album Review

Radio Bévort: Which Craft?

Read "Which Craft?" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Pernille Bévort, the Danish saxophonist/composer and singer, has been quietly working her musical charms for over twenty years, as both a mainstay of the Danish big-band scene and leader of impressive small ensembles. Following the stripped-down, straight-ahead Trio Temptations (Gateway Music, 2014), Bévort rekindles her Radio Bévort project, whose Perfect Organisation (Gateway 2011)--with bandoneon player Marcello Nisinman--explored the confluence of jazz and tango nuevo. For Which Craft?, Francesco Cali features on accordion, as Bévort steers her highly attuned octet through ...

5
Album Review

Radio Bévort: Which Craft?

Read "Which Craft?" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard


Music has a strange power to enchant us. In fact, it is unbelievable that vibrations and patterns of sound are able to move our emotions. Danish saxophonist and composer, Pernille Bévort, has captured the mystery of music in the poetically playful title of her latest album Which Craft? It can both be read as a reference to the strange witchcraft of music and a question that asks where music comes from. Bévort herself is firmly planted in ...

9
Interview

Pernille Bévort: Roundabouts And Novellas

Read "Pernille Bévort: Roundabouts And Novellas" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It's been over three years since multi-reedist, singer composer and arranger Pernille Bévort released Perfect Organisation (Gateway, 2011), her outstanding bringing together of jazz and tango nuevo that featured bandoneon player Marcelo Nisinman. Bévort, however, hasn't been slacking off in any way in the intervening years, oh no. She's simply been occupied in the execution of jury duty. Sitting on a jury casting judgment on thousands of hopeful artists sounds like the typical talent-spotting shows that clog ...

22
Album Review

Bévort 3: Trio Temptations

Read "Trio Temptations" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Of late, multi-reed player, singer, composer and arranger Pernille Bévort has alternated between the elegant, quirky jazz of the Bévort/Schmidt quartet, and Radio Bévort, a jazz/tango project with bandoneon player Marcelo Nisinman or accordionist Francesco Cali. Playground + 1 (Calibrated, 2007) with Schmidt and Perfect Organisation (Gateway, 2011) with Nisinman represent only part of Bévort's talents, as she also plays, writes and arranges for some of Denmark's most important big bands. This latter facet of Bévort--the union of multiple voices--colors ...

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About Northbound with Bévort 3 (release feb. 9th 2024):
"I don't see any reason why this trio shouldn't be a success at clubs and festivals, not only in Denmark, but at most clubs and festivals around…….what this trio delivers on this release is completely on the same level as most of the trios from the other side of the ocean." - Jan Granlie, Salt Peanuts, dec. 2023 - Read the whole review (Norwegian)

About Live 2020-2021 with Bévort 3 (2022):
"....the spirit of those legendary saxophone trios from the 1950s and 1960s comes to life (Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitz, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler ...)

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Northbound

Gateway Music
2024

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Småt Brændbart

Gateway Music
2023

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Live 2020-2021

Gateway Music
2022

buy

On Fire

Self Produced
2021

buy

BLIK

Gateway Music
2020

buy

Gopler og andre...

Gateway Music
2019

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