Jakob Bro

With a rich and resonant tonal palette, Danish guitarist and composer Jakob Bro crafts expansive jazz that blends atmospheric experimentation with forward-looking ideas yet remains rooted in longstanding traditions. Having performed in Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band and Tomasz Stanko’s Dark Eyes quintet, Bro draws from harmonically dense, smoky modernist balladry, though he readily incorporates angular distortion-pedal textures that inject dissonance and tension into his otherwise folk-tinged pastoral compositions. Distinctive loop and effects techniques further separate him from most jazz guitarists of his generation. He first gained notice as a distinctive leader with the 2003 sextet release Daydreamer, featuring three horns, yet wider international recognition arrived via the 2015 ECM trio debut Gefion; the follow-up Streams reached the charts in 2016. Two further projects appeared in 2018—the studio album Returnings and the live recording Bay of Rainbows—before the collaborative Uma Elmo, shared with trumpeter Arve Henriksen and drummer Jorge Rossy, surfaced in 2021. The following year he joined saxophonist Joe Lovano for Once Around the Room: A Tribute to Paul Motian, while the archival 2014 session Taking Turns, documenting encounters with Lee Konitz and Bill Frisell, finally emerged on ECM in 2024.

Born in Risskov, Denmark in 1978, Bro began on trumpet and absorbed jazz through his father’s big-band performances and record collection. At roughly age twelve he turned to guitar, an instrument that soon eclipsed trumpet and prompted formal studies at Denmark’s Rhythmic Conservatory, Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York. Although he left without completing a degree, his intuitive grasp of improvisation and ensemble dialogue attracted the attention of New York musicians, among them Paul Motian, who enlisted him for the Electric Bebop Band and featured him on the 2004 album Garden of Eden.

From the mid-2000s onward Bro has collaborated with an array of artists that includes Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Paul Bley, Chris Cheek, Ben Street, Mark Turner, Chris Speed, David Virelles, and others. As a bandleader he has maintained a consistent release schedule that began with Daydreamer (2003) on Loveland and continued on the same imprint with Pearl River (2007), The Stars Are All New Songs (2008), Balladeering (2009), Bro/Knak (2011), and December Song (2013). His ECM tenure opened in 2015 with Gefion, spotlighting bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Jon Christensen; Streams followed a year later, this time with Joey Baron on drums. The deeply lyrical 2018 album Returnings reunited Christensen and Morgan while adding veteran trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, after which ECM issued the live document Bay of Rainbows in October of the same year, capturing the Streams trio at New York’s Jazz Standard in 2017. Early 2021 brought his fifth ECM outing, Uma Elmo, a set of eight original compositions performed with Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy and produced by Manfred Eicher. He subsequently teamed with saxophonist Joe Lovano for Once Around the Room: A Tribute to Paul Motian in 2022. The previously unreleased 2014 session Taking Turns reached ECM in 2024, presenting Bro alongside Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Thomas Morgan, Jason Moran, and Andrew Cyrille.