Ingar Zach

Ingar Zach emerged among the Norwegian avant-garde jazz players who coalesced into a distinct scene during the middle and later years of the 1990s. A drummer rooted in free jazz yet equally at ease in non-idiomatic settings, he combined tireless activity with restraint in a manner comparable to his compatriot Paal Nilssen-Love. His most prominent associations remain the ensembles Tri-Dim and No Spaghetti Edition, and he shares responsibility for operating the compact free-improvisation imprint Sofa.

Born in 1971, Zach pursued classical studies in Oslo before turning to jazz training in Trondheim, the same program attended by Nilssen-Love, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and an entire cohort of innovative jazz musicians. His earliest professional engagements came with the folk big band Chateau Neuf Spelemannslag, one of the ensembles included on guitarist Henry Kaiser’s Shanachie anthologies Sweet Sunny North, issued in 1994 and 1996. The resulting international attention prompted the group to document its own work on the 1998 release Stolen Goods. At the same time Zach began participating in numerous improvising configurations that ranged from jazz-oriented to more abstract. Among them, the trio Tri-Dim, completed by Swedish guitarist David Stackenäs and Norwegian reeds player Håkon Kornstad, has proved the most enduring. Its debut recording appeared in 1999 on the BP label. In November 2000 the group traveled to the United States and appeared at the Molde International Jazz Festival with British bassist Barry Guy; that performance was later issued as 2 of 2 in 2002. Immediately preceding the American journey, Zach performed several concerts in duo with the veteran improviser Derek Bailey. Upon returning home he joined Ivar Grydeland and Karl Seglem in establishing Sofa as an offshoot of the jazz and world-music label NorCD. From the beginning of 2001 onward the imprint has issued multiple projects involving Zach, among them duo recordings with Grydeland and Bailey, the quartet Wazahugy featuring Grydeland, Charlotte Hug, and Philipp Wachsmann, and two albums by the expansive pan-European collective No Spaghetti Edition.