Biography
Electric guitarist Torben Waldorff entered the world in Faaborg, Denmark, on July 6, 1963 and spent his formative years in Copenhagen. Early on, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Albert King, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, and David Bowie shaped his listening, yet encounters with Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, and above all Miles Davis, Weather Report, and Stanley Clarke steered him toward jazz. Between 1984 and 1988 he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where he crossed paths with saxophonist Donny McCaslin; together they rehearsed in New York alongside drummer Jon Wikan and bassist Matt Clohesy while sketching plans for a collective. At Berklee he concentrated on jazz composition and arrangement under Herb Pomeroy and took private lessons with Charlie Banacos. The 1961 Jimmy Giuffre trio featuring Steve Swallow and Paul Bley remains one of his strongest touchstones, while the idioms of Duke Ellington and Ornette Coleman surfaced later and left a clearer imprint on his present-day writing. After gigging around Boston venues alongside Sam Newsome and Jim Black, Waldorff returned to Copenhagen in 1989 and settled in the Oresund region close to Malmo, Sweden, where he began working with Tomas Franck, Anders Bergcrantz, Bob Rockwell, and Christian Minh Doky; he also imported Newsome, Ben Perowsky, and Ingrid Jensen from New York for festival engagements. Several orchestral commissions have since occupied his pen and stage. His first leader dates appeared in 1999 on the Swedish imprint L.J. Records with the No Bass Band album Hello World, followed by Squealfish in 2004. American listeners first met his music through the Artist Share releases Brilliance in 2006 and Afterburn in 2008. Additional collaborators encompass Allison Miller, David Berkman, Hans Glawischnig, Gary Thomas, Karl-Martin Almqvist, Joel Miller, Christine Jensen, Maria Schneider, Geoff Keezer, Sam Yahel, and Fraser Hollins.
Albums