Helge Lien Trio

Helge Lien Trio & Tore Brunborg – Funeral Dance (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 5, 2023 · Comments off

Music is about singing, dancing, life, and death. These are the kinds of things I learned from my teacher and mentor, the incredible Ukrainian pianist Mikhail (Misha) Alperin. Misha turned my world upside down from the moment we met. I was 19 then, and he continued to have a huge influence on me ever since. We didn’t see each other very often in later years, but every time we did, I was filled with energy and inspiration. And in every meeting, he said at least one little thing that I would think about for months afterwards, whether it was during a brief conversation in the academy hallway, or a two-hour monologue in his office. He was intense. He celebrated life and love. He was singing, dancing and certainly living through his music. His death has left a void in our world that can never be filled, and he is sorely missed.

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Helge Lien Trio – Badgers And Other Beings (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 8, 2023 · Comments off

A little nation with a big jazz tradition is the land of fjords and trolls. Fascinating new artists and acts sporting a huge zest for playing and an irrepressible urge for experimentation keep pushing out of Norway to conquer the rest of the jazz world. The Helge Lien Trio, who have already won a large circle of fans in Scandinavia and Japan with their five albums and inspiring live concerts, are especially significant. They maintain the balance between jazz traditions and the avantgardist art of improvisation like hardly any other classic piano trio, par excellence.

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Helge Lien Trio – 10 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 8, 2023 · Comments off

Everything and Everything at Once: The sessions to the new Helge Lien Trio album were not supposed to be special. And yet, they could never be business as usual. After the departure of founding member Frode Berg, the group were “at a crossroads,” says Lien, and in need of a fresh start. They found it by leaving their comfort zone: For the first time in 15 years, they did not record at the Rainbow studio in Oslo. The change of location turned out to be productive. In the end, the musicians had two full records’ worth of material – and none of it fit the glove of a conventional trio recording.

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Helge Lien Trio – Natsukashii (2011) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 8, 2023 · Comments off

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Helge Lien Trio – Revisited (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 6, 2023 · Comments off

Helge Lien Trio - Revisited (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Revisited is a hybrid of studio and concert recordings from the acclaimed Norwegian pianist/composer Helge Lien and his trio.

Miraculously, however, you can’t hear the hybrid nature of the source material. All tracks blend into a cohesive, 50-minute piece: There are no sounds from the audience and the studio takes feel as urgent as the live performances.

After the departure of Frode Berg (after ‘Guzuguzu’) and Per Oddvar Johansen (after ’10’), Helge Lien had to re-think and re-assemble his trio. All the while, he continued to record and (virtually) perform you could call it improvisation squared.
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Helge Lien Trio – Hello Troll (2008) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 27, 2023 · Comments off

Trolls, after all, are mythical creatures from Nordic mythology, and Nordic mythology of pre-Christian times has been a prominent theme among Scandinavian extreme metal bands. One of Finland’s best-known metal bands, in fact, is named Finntroll. But Hello Troll has nothing to do with metal. The focus of Norwegian pianist Helge Lien is straight-ahead post-bop jazz, and on Hello Troll, he embraces the time-honored acoustic piano trio format (Frode Berg is on upright bass, Knut Aalefaer on drums). Over the years, that format has been successful for a wide variety of acoustic jazz pianists ranging from Erroll Garner to Cecil Taylor to Red Garland; it also works well for Lien, who favors a clean-sounding post-bop pianism along the lines of Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Ahmad Jamal.

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Adam Baldych with Helge Lien Trio & Tore Brunborg – Brothers (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 1, 2022 · Comments off

Adam Bałdych’s new album is called “Brothers,” and is dedicated to the memory of his brother who passed away. The violinist is able truly to portray the entire gamut of emotions through music. In the pianissimo moments it is replete with feeling and also clarity, and on the other hand Bałdych can take it to a point where it is so strong and loud it feels almost ready to burst. “I would like my music,” says Bałdych, “to ingrain itself into the present time, and also to reflect it. It should take on board the cares and the yearnings of now.

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