The concert is arranged in collaboration with Bergen Jazzforum and takes place on Thursday 24 October in Sardinia, USF Shipyard. Tickets on sale from Tuesday 13. August on billettservice.no. The rest of the program will be announced in September.
Eliane Elias is one of the most distinctive pianists to have appeared on the international jazz scene in recent decades. With strong musical roots from growing up in Brazil and thorough classical schooling, she came as a breath of fresh air into the American jazz world in the early 80's, when a couple and twenty years old settled in New York and soon took over the piano stool in the supergroup Steps Ahead. Then it did not take long before she went on with a solo career as a jazz pianist where she quickly marked herself as a strong personality with a distinctly lyrical vein.. But she has always been able to surprise her audience with new angles.
She is coming to Bergen this time with a classical acoustic piano trio, in collaboration with bassist Marc Johnson, which should be familiar to most people, and drummer Maurício Zottarelli, which originally comes from Brazil, but has long since established itself in the top tier of New York's extensive environment for jazz-influenced Latin music.
In her long record career, Eliane Elias has made important contributions to the instrumental bossatrio tradition, not least with the extremely tasty album "Eliane Elias plays Jobim" which came in 1990, where she in company with top American musicians creates a beautiful and creative meeting between the Brazilian tradition and a modern American jazz expression, spice up with tasteful and refined reharmonizations of Jobim's songs.
Since the end of the 90s, she has distinguished herself more and more as a vocalist in good bossa nova tradition, but she sings in both Portuguese and English depending on the situation, at the same time as she colors the expression with her exquisite piano playing. Even in fairly pop-oriented vocal songs, she only needs a few beats with piano solo to show that she is one of the heavyweights in the modern jazz piano world.
During her record career, she has explored many different crews, everything from solo and duo playing (med Herbie Hancock), via traditional acoustic trio, quartet or quintet format for big bands and thoroughly produced studio sound with modern pop character. With great success, she has all the way alternated between her own compositions and tasteful and original versions of other composers' material.
Her thorough classical education means that she is one of very few pianists who has been able to simultaneously release both jazz records and classical recordings at a high level.. But it is as a jazz pianist that she has seen the strongest traces behind her. What above all characterizes her improvisational art is good taste, a lyrical basic tone, and a sure move to create well-balanced proportions in the use of different tools. The game is more characterized by well-formed logic in the connection between tones and phrases and immediate contact with emotional realities, than by external technical brilliance, yet, of course, she fully masters all technical and harmonious features.
The text is written by pianist and organist Aasmund Brekke who lives in Brasilia.
Brazilian Eliane Elias plays in Sardinia, USF Shipyard October 24.
The rest of the program comes in September!