Biography
Norway has long been celebrated for its fjords, northern lights, Edvard Grieg, and a pair of exceptional jazz vocalists, Karen Krog and Laila Dalseth. Dalseth launched her professional singing life in 1954 at fourteen in her native Bergen. After relocating to Oslo six years later, she built a body of work that placed her alongside leading jazz figures from both Europe and the United States. Gemini Records issued her solo projects with Al Cohn, Milt Hinton, Red Mitchell, Bucky Pizzarelli, Louis Stewart, and Phillip Catherine. She also contributed guest vocals to recordings by Arne Domnerus, Bengt Hallberg, and her husband, the saxophonist Totti Bergh. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s she performed at major festivals, including Playboy’s, the Caribbean Jazz Festival, and the Sacramento Jazz Festival, sharing stages with Major Wholley, Flip Phillips, Roger Kellaway, Frank Capp, Jim Hughart, Nat Pierce, and the modernist pianist Per Husby. Three times she received Norway’s Spellenmannprisen for distinguished jazz performance, and the Norwegian Jazz Society presented her with its Buddy Award. Marking four decades as a jazz artist, Dalseth continues to move fluidly among jazz idioms while delivering nuanced, perceptive readings of both familiar standards and lesser-known material, securing her position at the forefront of Scandinavian jazz.
Albums
