Rebekka Bakken

Rebekka Bakken stood out as the foremost voice among an emerging wave of Scandinavian jazz singers from Nordic folk traditions, a circle that also featured Silje Nergaard, Sidsel Endresen, and Solveig Slettahjell. The Oslo native entered the world in 1970 and took up violin and piano in childhood, then shifted to New York City in 1995 intent on launching a full-time career in music. There she joined forces with Austrian-born guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, and the two worked the local nightclub scene together as a duo. Bakken subsequently grew close to German pianist Julia Hülsmann, leading to their 2003 collaboration Scattering Poems, a set of jazz readings drawn from the poetry of e.e. cummings. Once that project wrapped, she headed back to Europe, made Vienna her base, and secured a solo contract with the Universum label. Her first album under that arrangement, The Art of How to Fall, appeared before the year closed, and in 2005 she delivered her commercial breakthrough Is That You?, which was followed a year later by I Keep My Cool.