Upcoming Tour Dates:
7/14 at The Copenhagen Jazzfestival @ Paradis Jazz
7/15 at Det grænseløse køkken in Ebeltoft, DK
7/16 at Århus Internationale Jazzfestival @ Kunsthal Aarhus
The press on Anne Mette Iversen's So Many Roads (on BJURecords):
"
Iversen is now based in Berlin, though her leading role in the Brooklyn Jazz Underground has had a huge impact on the New York scene. Her Double Life ensemble combines jazz quintet and string quartet with extraordinary results: Just behold the profusion of harmonic color and naturally flowing swing on the group's second release,
So Many Roads
. The album says a lot in just under 37 minutes."
- David R. Adler, The Village Voice
"Iversen's long-running quartet includes saxophonist John Ellis and pianist Danny Grissett, who both play wonderfully burnished improvisations here that bounce off Iversen's fertile material . . . The only real problem with So Many Roads is that the journey ends before you want it to."
- Bradley Bambarger, DownBeat Magazine
"[a] highly rewarding road trip through Anne Mette Iversen's fertile mind"
- Jeff Tamarkin, JazzTimes
"This is a great piece of music . . . it's like two groups performing simultaneously, and periodically bleeding into each other's worlds in fascinating and thrilling ways." - Phil Freeman, Burning Ambulance
"Anne Mette Iversen
brings instrumental dexterity as well as sharp compositional and band-leading skills with her."
- The New Yorker
Anne Mette Iversen Quartet +1
is an extension of Anne Mette's longest running group: Anne Mette Iversen Quartet, featuring
John Ellis (tenor saxophone), Peter Dahlgren (trombone), Danny Grissett (piano), Iversen (bass) and Otis Brown III (drums).
Established in NYC in 2002, the musical relationship and the improvisational rapport of its musicians have developed to the supreme, as have their music and the compositions. This group voices a musical ideal and aesthetic that Anne Mette has sought after for many years; having found it, her seventh recording, Round Trip, feels like going full circle. It expresses on several levels what is innate in the words "round trip", and how we all strive to satisfy our longing to come, to be, to find, and to have, a home.
Originally the meaning of 'round trip' was to return to the starting point via a different road. Anne Mette explains, "when I wrote the tune 'Round Trip', it was about a deep and heartfelt wish I had to return to my two sons, who I had left in another country for a few days. As this album and this music came about, 'round trip' then became a key idea for the album. In the sense of coming home, it describes the feeling I have every time I play with this group. It refers to the many (round) trips we have taken together over the years, but also how much we have grown as a band, musicians and persons, and how we, no matter where each one of us is placed in the world, get together to make music and share our experiences. Even on a personal level I see the many round trips in our journey through life and music." Round Trip is simply j
azz on a high level, a feeling of unity and togetherness that can be otherwise hard to find. Highly recommended!
# # # #
In
2012
Anne
Mette
moved
to
Berlin
,
and
at the
beginning
of
2015
she
formed
a
new
group
,
The Ternion Quartet
,
which
brings out
a
new
side
of
her
musical
personality
.
The
group
is
front
-
lined
by
the
two
amazing
horn
players
:
alto
saxophonist
Silke Eberhard
(
rising
star
,
DownBeat Magazine
2015),
and
trombonist
Geoffrey DeMasure
(professor at The Jazz Institute of Berlin)
;
and
it is
brilliantly
supported
by
Ms. Iversen herself and long-time friend and colleague from NYC, German born
drummer
Roland Schneider
. "
This group is to me what Berlin is all about. It is fresh, it is creative and it is giving room to a multitude of inspiration and cultures. There is an element of total freedom and there is an element of chance and risk-taking. Anything and everything goes," explained Iversen.
The Ternion Quartet plays music that is energetic and fun. Like fireworks; the music offers a tremendous display of colors and moods. Rooted in the tradition of jazz, swing and improvisation, the compositions give ample room for the virtuosic improvisers to express their creative personality; and with the experience, maturity and flexibility of the musicians the music can change direction on the fly and is constantly new, fresh and renewed again. Compositionally the music is based on a linear and horizontal concept, allowing the individual instruments' melodies to conduct the harmonic map, whenever that is desired. The aim is for
the
full
emotional
spectrum
of
being
human to be expressed by
these
outstanding
musicians and improvisers
.
The
Ternion
Quartet
has
toured
successfully
in
Spain
(
December
2015),
performs regularly in and around Berlin, and has been invited to perform at Aarhus International Jazzfestival in Denmark, in July 2017.
# # # #
Anne Mette Iversen is always quite busy composing, and not always for her fantastic groups. In 2016 Iversen was
Composer in Residence for The Norrbotten Big Band, one of Sweden's leading ensembles, and she is currently composing music for The Orchestra (DK), for a performance in September of this year.
