Bugge Wesseltoft

Bringing a modern edge to piano and keyboards, Bugge Wesseltoft achieved major success in Norway throughout the 1990s. He subsequently embarked on worldwide tours that encompassed both jazz and rock settings. During the opening years of that decade he belonged to Arild Andersen’s ensemble and contributed to Jan Garbarek’s Molde Canticle, a piece commissioned by the Molde Jazz Festival. Alongside these musicians he aligned comfortably with the postmodern aesthetic favored by ECM Records. Additional collaborators from the period included guitarists Terje Rypdal and Jon Eberson as well as vocalist Sidsel Endresen. With Endresen he took part in another Molde Jazz Festival commission that later appeared on ECM. His own festival commission, A Little War Story, received its premiere at the 1993 Vossa Jazz Festival. In 1995 he established the band New Conception of Jazz together with the Jazzland imprint; the label’s debut release earned a Spellemannprisen—the Norwegian counterpart to a Grammy—the following year. Mid-decade found him again touring and recording with Billy Cobham, Endresen, and Garbarek, the last of whom featured him on Rites.

From that point through the close of the decade, Wesseltoft’s work attracted listeners immersed in Norway’s techno and dance communities. On the 1998 album Sharing he surprised observers with prominent contributions from club DJs and scratchers. This club-world link produced the 2000 collection Jazzland Remixed, which further strengthened his standing among those listeners. The same hybrid approach surfaces on the 2003 release Just a Little Bit Crazy, recorded with Joyce & Banda Maluca; the 2006 project The Cool Side of the Pillow, made with Michy Mano; and the 2009 solo album Playing, which incorporated real-time looping and electronic sound manipulation. In 2012 he partnered with violinist Henning Kraggerud on Last Spring, then issued the ethnic-fusion album OK World in 2014. Two years later he returned with the atmospheric solo-piano recording Everybody Loves Angels.