Heat

Pianist Jacob Karlzon, born 1970, is a Swedish jazz veteran. His first album came out in 1992. Heat is the sixth album in Jacob´s own name. 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.

The album Heat (2009) consists mainly of Jacobs 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 members of the trio at the time for the recording of this album were: Jacob Karlzon, piano, Hans Andersson, bass, and Jonas Holgersson, drums. A couple of tracks also feature Jacobs old friends Peter Asplund, trumpet, and Karl-Martin Almqvist, saxophone.

Jacob has been compared with such luminaries as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Sweden’s own legendary pianist Jan Johansson. Jacob’s playing style boasts technical brilliance, great rhythmic and harmonic complexity and a perfect feeling for form.

Since 1999, he has been director of music and composer for singer Viktoria Tolstoy’s band. He is also a key member of Swedish trumpet star Peter Asplund’s Quartet. 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, 2007) and Putte Wickman, to name but a few. Jacob has also been a pianist in the Tolvan Big Band, one of Sweden’s top big bands.

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.

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.