Palle Mikkelborg | Light

Palle Mikkelborg (b. 1941) – a spiritual jazz legend, acclaimed composer, trumpeter and pioneer of electronic music – is back with his first solo album in more than 25 years. He collaborates with Jakob Bro as producer, with whom he previously recorded the fantastic ECM albums »Returnings« with Jon Christensen and Thomas Morgan and »Strands« with Marilyn Mazur.

"When Palle decided to stop touring and performing live, I suggested that we sit down together and listen through the many MiniDiscs and DAT tapes he had stashed away, in the hope that we could find a new direction for making music together. We went through everything – recordings of orchestras and choirs, soundscapes, etc. – material he had worked with throughout his career," says Jakob Bro. "I still remember when we first said it out loud – it immediately made so much sense to me. A solo album. An album with nothing but Palle... his sound, his vision and pure expression... it was something the world needed."

In this final work, Palle Mikkelborg reinterprets and records his own orchestral works and two pieces by Per Nørgaard and Thomas Laub as ›meditations‹ on solo piano, trumpet and flugelhorn mixed with soundscapes and guest appearances by his long-time collaborators Helen Davis, Jakob Bro and Thomas Li.

As a soloist, Palle Mikkelborg's sound on trumpet and flugelhorn is both much loved and well-known after decades at the forefront of Nordic music, but on »Light« you are struck by the emphasis Palle Mikkelborg has given to his soundscapes and the piano. Always curious about what lies ahead, the album emphasizes his spiritual and ever-searching approach to free improvisation, classical composition, choral works and experimental soundscapes.