LIVING is Jan Gunnar Hoff's first solo piano album. His personal blend of different styles and influences is presented in its purest form - simply music. Some of Hoff's pieces are meditative and expressive, while others have a strong rhythmic nerve, creating contrast and variation in the programme.
Jan Gunnar Hoff has worked extensively as a bandleader and jazz artist since 1992, developing a distinctive musical style. His band with a.o. Audun Kleive and Bjørn Kjellemyr had its breakthrough at Vossa Jazz 1995 and later played at the London Jazzfestival, Molde Int. Jazzfestival and several major festivals and venues in Scandinavia. Hoff's jazzcompositions have been performed in collaborations with Mike Stern, Pat Metheny, Alex Acuña, Maria João, Mathias Eick and many others. He has made a number of albums in his own name and has composed 180 works for different ensembles. Hoff is also teaching as a professor at the Universities of Tromsø and Kristiansand.
As a sideman Hoff has contributed to numerous recordings in different genres. He was the arranger and ensemble leader of Quiet Winter Night, Grammy-nominated for Best Surround Sound in 2013, an album where he successfully merges elements of jazz, folk and popular music. Hoff's collaboration with 2L and Morten Lindberg is continued on LIVING. This is a solo piano journey that carries Hoff's artistic identity further into his own musical terrain, enhanced by the crystal clear recording from Sofienberg Church in Oslo.
"Hoff's writing and playing possesses an almost pop-like clarity and concision, but with a far richer vernacular." - John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com
I started playing the piano at the age of 10. Early on I began improvising on the classical pieces that my piano teacher gave me. I made minor variations in the melodies and learnt a lot of music by ear. A few years later I listened to artists like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Deep Purple, Ketil Bjørnstad, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett and Weather Report. Edvard Grieg was also a major influence. I have always felt as being part of a crossover tradition somewhere between jazz, classical and popular music. The melody for me is the strongest part of music.
I spend a lot of time searching for thematic substance and try to develop this into tunes or larger compositions. In order to make the melodies "come alive" I seek to express emotion and passion in the performance itself. There is also a strong link between improvisation and composition. Many of my pieces emerge from improvising on the piano or are captured from a sequencer session. I start writing a lot of small sketches, then choose which ideas to develop further. - Jan Gunnar Hoff, 2013
Recorded in DXD 24bit/352.8kHz by Lindberg Lyd AS, Oslo
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Jan Gunnar Hoff, piano – Living
2L Pure Audio Blu-ray (DTS-HD MA 192/24 or PCM stereo 192/24) + multichannel SACD 2L92
(5/28/13) *****:
Jan Gunnar Hoff was the arranger and leader on the previous audio-only 2L Blu-ray titled Quiet Winter Night (which got a GRAMMY nomination for best surround sound). He is an important Norwegian jazz artist and bandleader with his own special musical style. He has played various European jazz festivals and with such people as Pat Metheny and Mike Stern. As a composer he has created 180 works for various ensembles.
The pianist-composer says in his note booklet that he seeks to bridge the pop, jazz and classical genres in his music, and intends it to sound part improvised and part written out, which it is. Most of the pieces tend to be rather quite and meditative, though occasionally a strong rhythmic beat appears to create some contrasts. While there is some influence of Scandinavian folk music, there are no really strong melodies that one would go on whistling after listening to the album.
The recording session was held in a beautiful church with fine acoustics and 2L’s CEO and chief engineer resists putting the mics down inside the piano, keeping them some distance away for a very realistic sonic. There is also a fine video of the first track, Living, which is a terrific idea. (Wish more standard CDs did this as an enhanced feature; a few used to but lately seem to have forgotten about that.) The excellent camera work gives you plenty of closeups of Hoff in performance and a good image to have in mind while listening to the rest of the album without the visuals.
What is very striking is the small pile of firewood on the floor between the Steinway and the main two-channel mics on a big stand. They are visible both in the video and in one of the still photos in the accompanying booklet. I deduce that engineer-producer Morton Lindberg’s fine-tuned ears picked up a slap-back from the shiny floor in front of the mics and didn’t want to completely deaden sonics with a rug, so he just piled a bit of firewood there to break up the reflections. Works fine; just makes one think perhaps they plan to burn the Steinway when the session is finished for a grand finale…
I found the Blu-ray audio and the SACD to again be about equal in fidelity, and especially enjoyed the hi-res Blu-ray PCM stereo on my AKG headphones. The crystalline clarity of these recordings aided my getting deeper into the music than I think I ever have with just surround speakers.
John Henry
http://audaud.com/2013/05/jan-gunnar-hoff-piano-living-tracklist-follows-2l-pure-audio-blu-ray-sacd/
