Jacob Karlzon's music resides in the intersections where Scandinavian expressions such as space, melancholy and sensitivity blend with heat and passion.
Jacob has been compared to such luminaries as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Sweden's own legendary pianist Jan Johansson. His playing style boasts technical brilliance, great rhythmic and harmonic complexity and a perfect feeling for form.
Jacob Karlzon was born 1970 i Jönköping, Sweden and is already a jazz veteran. His first album came out in 1992, since then he has recorded five more in his own name, and featured on at least 40 others. He has been showered with distinctions and prizes over the years. In 1997 he won the Jazz in Sweden award with the Malmö combo Blue Pages and was voted Newcomer of the Year by Swedish Radio's annual jazz critic poll. In 2010 he was voted Musician of the Year by Swedish Radio's annual jazz critic poll and was rewarded the Django d'Or as Contemporary Star of Jazz.
Since 1999, he has been director of music and composer for singer Viktoria Tolstoy's band, with which he has recorded four albums, the latest being My Russian Soul. He is also a key member of Swedish trumpet star Peter Asplund's quartet, with which Jacob was heard most recently on the critically acclaimed As Knights Concur. In 2007, the band – including Jacob – won both the "Gyllene Skivan" award and the Manifest Gala award with Lochiel's Warning.
In addition to these greats, Jacob has played with many other leading jazz musicians: Billy Cobham, Kenny Wheeler, Bob Berg, Tim Hagans, Jeff Ballard, Norma Winstone, Cæcilie Norby, Nils Landgren, Silje Nergaard, Rigmor Gustafsson, Lina Nyberg, Trine-Lise Væring, Anders Bergcrantz (Jacob featured on Bergcrantz's "Gyllene Skivan" winner About Time) and Putte Wickman, to name but a few. For the past few years, Jacob has also been a pianist in the Tolvan Big Band, one of Sweden's top big bands.
Solopiano
Jacob released his first solo piano album, this time on Caprice Records, in the autumn of 2008. The third volume in a new series of improvised piano music, Improvisational three had Jacob interpret and be inspired by French composer Maurice Ravel. The album was enthusiastically received by the critics.
The most important forum for Jacob, however, is his own trio. Their first album, Take Your Time, was released on the Dragon label in 1996, when his band comprised Mattias Svensson on bass and Peter Danemo on drums. He followed this two years later with Going Places on Prophone, and again four years later (2002) with Today on the same label. In 2003 he released his highly lauded Big5, by which time his trio had become a quintet, with Peter Asplund on trumpet and Karl-Martin Almqvist on sax.
From solo piano to quintet
2009 Caprice Records released the sixth album in Jacob's own name. The album Heat consists mainly of his own compositions, but also includes numbers by the nu metal outfit KoRn and Maurice Ravel, along with a track from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. The lineup is here different, with Hans Andersson on bass and Jonas Holgersson on drums. A couple of tracks also feature his old friends Peter Asplund and Karl-Martin Almqvist.
Since 2009 the trio with Hans Andersson and Jonas Holgersson has been touring in Sweden, Norway Danmark , Lithuania, Germany and UK playing in clubs and festivals for raving audiences and critics.
