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Dans Les Arbres

Guitarist Ivar Grydeland and percussionist Ingar Zach, prime movers and catalysts for free improvised music in Norway, got in touch with Christian Wallumrød after hearing his “Sofienberg Variations” on ECM and they have since worked together in diverse combinations including, since 2004, ‘Dans les arbres’ a project completed by French clarinettist Xavier Charles. Their radical all-acoustic improvisation explores sonorities and textures that frequently sound electronic, and also often sounds ‘composed’ – with echoes of Cage and the New York School.

Read more about Dans Les Arbres on Last.fm.

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Marilyn Mazur

Marilyn Mazur (born 1955) is a percussionist, drummer, composer, vocalist, pianist, dancer, and bandleader. She was born in New York and has lived in Denmark from age six. She is of Polish and African-American descent. From 1975 she has worked as percussionist with various groups, among others the group Six Winds with Alex Riel. Mazur is primarily autodidact, but she has taken a degree in percussion at the Royal Danish Conservatory.

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Arild Andersen

Arild Andersen (born October 27, 1945) is a Norwegian bass player. He started out as a member of the Jan Garbarek Quartet (1967-1973), with Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen. In the same period he also worked with the Norwegian singer Karin Krog and played in the rhythm section for visiting American musicians including Phil Woods, Dexter Gordon, Hampton Hawes, Johnny Griffin, Sonny Rollins, and Chick Corea. During this time, he also worked with Don Cherry and George Russell. Andersen has recorded over a dozen albums for ECM Records as band leader, and appeared on many others as side man.

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Dave Holland

Dave Holland (born October 1, 1946) is a British jazz bassist and composer who is a significant representative of avant-garde jazz. Born in Wolverhampton, England, Holland learned to play bass as a child, and spent three years studying the instrument at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. By 1967 he was a regular player at Ronnie Scott's, the premier jazz club in London, backing visiting musicians.

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Marcin Wasilewski Trio

The trio of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz is one of the most outstanding contemporary jazz groups. Their friend and mentor trumpeter Tomasz Stańko has said, “In the entire history of Polish jazz we've never had a band like this one. They just keep getting better and better.” It was through Stańko's ECM recording Soul of Things, recorded 2001, that the wider world first had a hint of the capacity of Wasilewski/Kurkiewicz/Miskiewicz.

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Jan Garbarek Group

One of the stablemates of the early ECM sound, the Jan Garbarek Group incorporated a smooth ethereal jazz sound led by Norwegian tenor and soprano saxaphonist Jan Garbarek. Their sound also uses ambient elements which at the time of his popularity was not even an established genre. He has collaborated with some famous jazz musicians, most notably, Paul Motian, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner.

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Jan Garbarek

Jan Garbarek (born March 4, 1947 in Mysen, Norway) a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was the only child of former Polish prisoner of war, and a Norwegian farmer's daughter. Garbarek grew up in Oslo. At 21, he married Vigdis. Their daughter Anja Garbarek is also a musician. Garbarek's sound is one of the hallmarks of the ECM record label, which has released virtually all of his recordings.

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Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner is an American acoustic guitarist. He also plays piano, synthesizer, and trumpet. Born in 1940 in Chehalis, Washington, Towner is one of the most diversely talented musicians of the past half-century, and has made notable recordings of jazz, classical music, folk music, and world music. He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical guitarist, then joined world music pioneer Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s.

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