"Michala Østergaard-Nielsen personifies in many ways the best in improvisational music, as she has a rare ability to nurture the meeting in the space of performance". The distinguished words framed the reason for the awarding of the Danish drummer, Michala Østergaard-Nielsen, from the prestigious Swedish jazz prize Jazzkannan in 2018. This is a musician who places the greatest emphasis on merging with the tones and letting the immediate moment determine the development of the music. It is music that is very emotional and where the audience is very much an active participant.

Included in this closely played trio are two of Sweden’s extremely fine and significant musicians: Trumpeter Staffan Svensson and tenor saxophonist Thomas Gustafsson - each with prominent careers as conductors. This concert with SounDance is guaranteed to be music that you take home, and music which stays in your mind for a good space of time.

Fortunately, Denmark is populated with an ever-growing number of talented musicians. One of those who really gets noticed in these years is the pianist Zier Romme. In addition to a well-grown technique and a furiously good musical overview, he owns perhaps the most important thing for a jazz musician; he swings amazingly! If your close your eyes it is like being at a concert with Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington or one of the other icons who also mastered the physical game.

Zier Romme goes to great lengths to challenge himself and his teammates, and here he is accompanied by the incomparable bassist Felix Moseholm, who in these years, among other things, plays with Brad Mehldau. The trio is rounded off by the incredibly swinging drummer Cornelia Nilsson, whose forward-rushing play guarantees an evening with the ideal mix of intellect, spirit and physique. Here, that cocktail is guaranteed from the very first beat.

The pianist Henrik Gunde is one of Denmark’s coolest musicians. He fits into all formats and masters most styles and is furthermore gifted with a formidable swing. In recent years Henrik Gunde has thrown himself into music that could have been recorded by the grunting Erroll Garner – the guy with the flying left hand. In several releases and at countless concerts, Gunde has played and revitalized music from all styles in a distinctly "Garnern" manner. You clearly sense that Gunde has studied Garner's rhythmics and his approach to music, but without putting his own originality out of control. The year 2021 marks Erroll Garner's 100th birthday, and it will of course be celebrated with a firework of a concert where Gunde in quartet will perform the quartet's super swinging and "Garnerized" versions of popular music from Denmark, USA and the rest of the world.

Jacob Lindberg is one of the new exciting names on the Danish jazz scene, who you really must keep an eye on. The young Swede has in short time established himself as a competent sideman, but this evening he will be leading his very own quartet at Jazzhus Montmartre.

The drummer has assembled an exemplary quartet consisting of some of the great young jazz musicians in Denmark: Oilly Wallace, Zier Romme and Matthias Petri, who all, like Lindberg himself, are setting their mark in the jazz world. With this team, it’s guaranteed that the music's trembling swing will bring the crowd to a boil, and the band's joy of playing will be felt all the way down to the back rows of the audience.

With the tireless and continuously curious saxophonist and composer Simon Spang-Hanssen as front man, we get an energetic and colorful tribute to a number of favorites from the history of jazz spiced up with the composer’s own interest in other musical cultures: Latin America, Africa, The Orient among others.

The format with four brass players plus rhythm section gives rich possibilities to orchestrate almost with a big band-feeling while maintaining the flexibility of a smaller group. In the group generations and stylistically approaches are mixed in an inciting and mutually challenging unit. Shapes, recurring themes and crooked riffs and imaginary folklore will be playfully intertwined. “Epistrophy” was Thelonius Monks’ signature tune and means something like a recurring, punctured ending phrase. This is used to end the manifold of improvisations – and to send off new ones.

Percussionist Marilyn Mazur is always a life-affirming experience with her many exciting instruments and timbres. In 2019, Marilyn was nominated for a Danish Music Award for “Jazz Composer of the Year”, and in 2020 she won a DMA for “Best Album of the Year” with Fredrik Lundin and Kasper Bai and the album "Maluba Orchestra".

In 2020 Marilyn has assembled this explosive trio with three personal and visionary voices within Nordic jazz improvisation. They have a kinship of sound and gather here in a completely fresh musical assignation. The trio will challenge each other in loosely structured shared rhythmical progressions. Look forward to big, intense and life-affirming music without boundaries.

Eliel Lazo travels all over the world as a distinguished ambassador for jazz and Cuban music. Lazo is recognized as one of the greatest percussionists in the world and plays i.a. with Michel Camilo.

This evening he once again gathers a true dream team of breathtaking jazz musicians, consisting of guitarist and singer Zacharias Williams and Kjeld Lauritzen on the Hammond organ. We can look forward to an evening of captivating Afro-Cuban jazz and vibrating tones from warm skies that undoubtedly will make it incredibly difficult for everyone to remain sitting in the chair and not get carried away.

This Monten-night features two duos that combine the acoustic and the electronic in minimalistic soundscapes.

The Danish jazz duo Svaneborg Kardyb is a new hope in Danish jazz. After the release of the duo's debut album, “Knob”, in the spring of 2019 a heady year followed with massive attention and critically acclaimed concerts both at home and abroad. The duo made a name for themselves at the Danish Music Awards Jazz 2019 by receiving both the award for "New Talent of the Year" and "Danish Jazz Composer of the Year" for their meditative grooves and the exquisite interaction between them. In the autumn of 2020, the duo released the sequel, "Haven", which is a tribute to nature. The music is created in the earliest mornings over the blackest coffee and has a minimalist and airy expression, where electronic and acoustic sound unite in elegant harmony. Captivating melodies meet deep Nordic moods in a dreamy and groovy universe.

The Swedish multi-instrumentalist Gustaf Ljunggren and the Danish drummer Emil de Waal's musical universe creates a meeting with avant-garde, easy-listening and ethno, which turn into dreamy cinematic surfaces and then into angular destructiveness. Curiosity and transformation bind two versatile musicians together into a symbiotic and ever-evolving musical expression. After the release of the debut album in 2018, which led to a DMA nomination, 200 plays on DR P8 Jazz and numerous concerts on different continents, Gustaf Ljunggren and Emil de Waal are reunited on the new album "Moon". The music is, if possible, even more personally reflective than on the predecessor, and the songs travels deep into the duo's musical history.

National Danish acoustic bass-icon Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (NHØP) left our world way too soon in 2005. As tradition goes, this evening four musicians show their deep respect and pay their homage to this great innovator.

Bo Stief has been a close ear and eyewitness to NHØP's life, mainly because the two friends had large parts of their musical upbringing at Montmartre. Stief talks about his experiences with NHØP, and the music played will be related to these stories. Stief will be accompanied by three great Danish musicians; Hans Ulrik, Henrik Gunde and the drummer, who has been touring endlessly with NHØP, Alex Riel.

The group enters NHØP’s musical universe and gives us their interpretations of his musical output. We will witness a glorious journey in music, where US-jazz walks hand in hand with traditional Danish songs. And through the entire concert, the spirit of NHØP and his enormous position in Danish jazz will be present.

One of the great European north/south collaborations in jazz can be found in this distinguished quartet. Two Danes and two Italians: four musicians who joins together with love and honesty in a musically extremely successful project. Here the authenticity of the countries' uniqueness is preserved. Both the musicians and the audience are challenged and delighted with the endless possibilities that comes, as long as you let the music decide.

Stylistically, the music is difficult to classify, because all four musicians each play with their own personality and desire to take the lead. But do not expect a war on the stage - rather look forward to a blissful musical experience with a happy common outcome.

Klara Kristin's debut album "Lullaby & Drum Machine" is packed with iconic French song gems from the 60's and 70's, and will without question make any Francophile heart melt. With her seductive and velvety smooth voice, Klara Kristin pays homage to French culture and the Nouvelle Vague, when she interprets Brigitte Bardot, Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg with an almost supernatural elegance.

The album is produced by Jonathan Bremer from the well-known duo Bremer/McCoy and jazz guitarist Johannes Wamberg. The lineup also includes a selection of some of Denmark's best young jazz musicians; Oilly Wallace, Andreas Svendsen and Zier Romme.

Aloft Quartet is a Scandinavian band whose music largely reflects the world around us, albeit with a great respect for the American jazz tradition mixed with a highly recognizable and dynamic Nordic touch.

They released their debut album "First Year" in 2018 and the sequel "Farewell Old Ways" in 2020. In connection with their upcoming release "Heart Rate", the well-played quartet can be experienced at Jazzhus Montmartre with lots of new exciting tracks as well as some from previous albums.

Dreamcatcher was originally formed 25 years ago with Jørgen Emborg behind the piano. The group re-emerged in 2019 with the two new members Mathias Heise and Rasmus Lund. Heise’s phenomenal playing adds an extra dimension to the band’s melodic fusion of funk, jazz, latin and rock. Rasmus Lund is an extremely popular drummer characterized by his versality and appears therefore in many different musical constellations.

Dreamcatcher additionally consists of Per Gade who has been a regular member of DR’s Bigband during the past several years and has played and toured most of the world with the legendary drummer Billy Cobham. The other founder, bassist Peter Hansen, has been a regular member in Jørgen Emborg’s ensembles and is furthermore the composer of most of Dreamcatcher’s songs. The group has just finished a new album, which is expected to be released in the spring of 2021.

Toots Thielemans has set massive footsteps in jazz history with his unique approach to the chromatic harmonica. On his own he managed to unite this peculiar instrument with bebop and modern jazz and thus became one of jazz's legends. Mathias Heise is an award-winning Danish harmonica player who has won the World Cup in chromatic jazz harmonica and is seen by many as Toots' successor.

On this evening, in the company of an eminent team of musicians, he will take up the mantle of the famous Belgian and at the same time show new and exciting roads for this particular instrument. The repertoire will feature both Toots' big hits, but also exciting, original compositions.

Mathias Heise Quadrillion has been playing together since 2012 and has since managed to create a different, unique and very personal contemporary expression that appeals to both young crossover fans and hardcore jazz fusion nerds. This evening, the elegance of jazz and the hard-hitting rhythms of funk music will merge into an exuberant set up, with four amazing musicians.

In addition to mastering the chromatic harmonica, 27-year-old Mathias Heise is an outstandingly skilled composer and pianist, and he surrounds himself with a skilled fusion-team consisting of peers and equally brilliant musicians who play a fusion of funk, rock and jazz. Ivan Rod from GAFFA describes the music as "Deeply original, engaging and totally elaborate."

At the age of 13, Mathæus Bech experienced a concert with Palle Mikkelborg's Aura that would change his life. From that point on, there was no doubt; he wanted to be a musician. 12 years later he is now celebrating that his dream really did come true, with his debut album “Optimist”, which reflects upon the journey from childhood dream to reality.

He unites his love for jazz, folk and classical music and blurs the lines between the genres in an empathetic and bright manner. He strives towards continuing the proud Danish tradition of virtuosic bass soloists and wants to show a new generation of music lovers, that the double bass also does well at the front of the stage.

Denmark has a kind of patent on fine jazz violinists: Svend Asmussen was the first. Then followed by Kristian Jørgensen, Mads Tolling and also this evening's main character, Bjarke Falgren. With an uncontrollable musicality, a fine sense of playing the right notes at the right time and a distinguished ability to refine and integrate his playing in all contexts, Falgren is something completely out of the ordinary. Falgren plays with everyone around the world. He composes music for films and TV series, and then he has this quartet that picks up colors from the entire palette: jazz, classical, Brazilian, and not least folk music.

With his irresistible swing, Bjarke Falgren stands out as something very special in contemporary Danish jazz music. He deservedly received the very first "The Ellen & Svend Asmussen Prize" in 2017. Look forward to enjoying a great musician at one of his rare concerts on Danish soil.

An evening that offers two very authentic Danish solo performers, playing each their instrument with their own musical personality.

Guitarist Mikkel Ploug is a dynamic musician in rapid development. His playing moves effortlessly in between genres with a strong focus on preserving the groove and the melodic originality of the music. During Denmark's first COVID-19 shutdown, Mikkel Ploug played 28 nights in a row from his balcony - both for neighbors and fans who listened from all over the world. The lullabies and evening songs in new guitar solo arrangements are gathered on the album "Balcony Lullabies", and this evening Ploug moves from the balcony to Montmartre’s stage.

The pianist Nikolaj Hess is one of the most original figures in Danish jazz. He is constantly looking for new ways of expression and has a constant retention of the music's strong rhythm. With the project "Impressions of Bob Dylan Revisited", Hess tackles songwriter Bob Dylan's rich archive of fantastic songs, which he gives completely new life through his ability to maintain and constantly offer new suggestions for variations on the well-known and beloved songs.

Among the country's many fine singers, Cathrine Legardh marks herself as one of the very versatile and brave. She has released children's records, played jazz standards and has on the release "En Sång I En Dröm" dared to give her interpretations - in the original language - of the Swedish icon Monica Zetterlund. And the result is nothing short of breathtaking! Not only does Legardh manage to capture and pass on the magic that was always in Zetterlund's phrasings, she also adds her own sweetness and vocal charm to the songs.

Here she is accompanied by one of the country's highly skilled vocal accompanists, Jacob Christoffersen, and the bassist with the great tone and confident intonation, Jesper Thorn. Among many songs, we can look forward to enjoying “Jag vet en dejlig ros”, “Sakta vi går genom stan”, “Monicas vals” and many more. Come join the celebration of one of Scandinavia's great jazz icons, led by one of Scandinavia's truly notable jazz singers.

Come join an exceptional musical experience filled with charming energy and joy, when Jazzkollektivet presents Øresund Triplettes and their “Tribute to The Andrew Sisters”.

The Andrew Sisters was an American close-harmony vocal trio that made a name for themselves in the swing and boogie-woogie era. The trio is behind songs as “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” and “Shoo Shoo Baby”. The concert will offer several of their original songs and continue the tradition to vocal jazz in the year 2020.