Jesper Zeuthen, Jacob Anderskov, Anders Vestergaard - Ecstatic Embrace (2020) Hi Res

“You guys are among the few people that do the ecstatic embrace” said the iconic drummer Paul Lovens to pianist Jacob Anderskov after having been in the audience to the first of two concerts that the trio played at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 2019. The term instantly resonated with the band and was adopted as the title for this live album that features the second concert from the 2019 Copenhagen Jazz festival.

Ecstatic Embrace is the follow-up to the trio’s critically acclaimed debut album “Out of the Spectacle” which won a Danish Music Award for the Best Special Release in 2019. It features two parts of improvised music that reveal an intense and close-knit interplay, and an ecstatic reaching for a new musical horizon.

Alto saxophonist Jesper Zeuthen is a Danish legend, that got public attention already in the late 60’s for his work with the group “Blue Sun”. He has tirelessly kept evolving his music through his own bands and his work with Jakob Bro, Anderskov Accident, Kasper Tranberg etc.

Jacob Anderskov is one of the most outstanding voices on the piano and has, since his debut in 2001, received numerous awards for his music. He has worked with Michael Formanek, Chris Speed, Airto Moreira etc.

The youngest of the three, Anders Vestergaard, is all over the Danish underground music scene and known for his personal touch on the drums. He is a part of the groups Yes Deer, Girls in Airports and Boujeloud and has played with Evan Parker, Lotte Anker, Thomas Morgan etc.

Together the three improvisors create an immediate and engaging music that meets the audience in a both challenging and embracing way, emotionally multidimensional and spacious. They act in a dynamic and personal interplay where influences and intensions float freely, melt together in synergy and explode in abstraction, and where the aim is to create space instead of filling it up. An ecstatic embrace of the core of music.