Ingebrigt Håker Flaten

Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten burst onto the Scandinavian avant-garde jazz landscape during the mid-1990s. By 2002 his schedule had grown so demanding that he ranked among the busiest players in the region, having contributed to over twenty albums, most of them alongside drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. He remains a core member of the Norwegian ensembles Element and Atomic. Saxophonist Mats Gustaffson provided the connection that brought him to Chicago, where he joined Ken Vandermark’s School Days.

Born in Oppdal in 1971, Flaten approached jazz gradually and only settled on his vocation while completing a three-year program at the Trondheim Music Conservatory between 1992 and 1995. During that period he encountered pianist Håvard Wiik, and together they launched the John Coltrane-inspired group Element. Nilssen-Love entered the lineup when he arrived in town in 1993. Flaten’s first commercially issued recording appeared in 1994 on Curling Legs: the Source’s Olemanns Kornett, whose title playfully reworks Ornette Coleman’s name and also features Trygve Seim, Øyvind Btaekke, and Per Oddvar Johansen. A second album by the same collective followed the next year.

Alongside Johansen on drums and pianist Christian Wallumrød, Flaten formed the trio Close Erase, whose debut album on the NOR label was released in 1996—the same year Element issued its first record. For several seasons these two bands kept him busy with frequent appearances on jazz-festival stages throughout Scandinavia and beyond. He also worked with Bugge Wesseltoft’s New Conception of Jazz and cut three albums alongside South African saxophonist Zim Ngqawana.

In 1999 Håker Flaten, Nilssen-Love, and Wiik recruited two Swedish horn players to create Atomic. Around the same time the bassist and drummer documented a session with Gustaffson that was issued as The Thing in 2000. Both musicians subsequently relocated temporarily to the United States and entered Vandermark’s School Days. Back in Norway, Håker Flaten maintained his earlier commitments while taking part in the large improvisation collective No Spaghetti Edition and forming the Scorch Trio with veteran guitarist Raoul Björkenheim, whose first album appeared in 2002.