| Jazz |
There are artists you grow alongside without even realizing it, musicians whose work becomes a kind of quiet chronicle of passing years. For me, the Søren Bebe Trio is one of those rare companions. I remember discovering them in a modest jazz club more than a decade ago, at a moment when the European jazz scene was renegotiating its identity between tradition and experiment. Since then, time has passed, and the trio has once again risen above its own accomplishments. I’ll confess it freely: they remain one of my favorite European ensembles, a group that fuses jazz, classical lineage, and improvisation with a refined restraint shaped by the breadth of their cultural sensibilities.
What distinguishes this trio is not only the elegance of their playing but the intellectual clarity with which they craft music. Their compositions often flirt with complexity, odd-meter passages, subtly shifting harmonies, long arcs of melodic development, yet they manage to make these architectures feel inviting rather than austere. One is tempted to call them the rightful heirs to the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (E.S.T.), but doing so risks understating the deeply romantic tint they bring to their work, a poetic warmth that softens even their most rigorous explorations.
To understand the vitality of their new album, Gratitude, one must place it within the broader resurgence of Scandinavian jazz. This January offers yet another reminder of how vigorous, and how multifaceted, the northern jazz world has become. The trio stands alongside a long lineage of innovators, Michael Wollny, Jon Johansson, Nils Landgren, Jacob Karlzon, and many others whose names could easily fill an encyclopedia. Much of this flourishing owes itself to the region’s remarkable musical education systems, which remain among the finest in the world. Germany, too, plays an essential role, acting as a cultural relay with its abundance of high-quality jazz venues and festivals. Together, they form a creative ecosystem that continues to shape, and sometimes redefine, the trajectory of contemporary European jazz.
Listening to Gratitude, you may sense an immediacy that feels unmistakably live. Yet the album is fully a studio creation. The illusion arises from two elements. First, the trio has spent many years refining a shared artistic vocabulary, allowing them to move as if breathing through a single lung. Second, the engineering and mixing are nothing short of exceptional. The recording captures everything—down to the faint whisper of a brushstroke on the snare, with a clarity that feels almost intimate, as if you were seated at the center of their circle. Musically, the album remains faithful to the trio’s established sound: lyrical, measured, touched by the soft northern glow that seems to suffuse much of Scandinavian jazz. Still, subtle new hues emerge, inspired by Bebe’s recent encounters with artists such as Mette Henriette, Mats Eilertsen, and Harmen Fraanje. These influences enrich the trio’s palette without ever overwhelming its essence.
The Søren Bebe Trio has long been celebrated internationally, having stepped onto major stages such as the London Jazz Festival, SXSW in the United States, the Hong Kong Jazz Festival, and South Korea’s Jarasum Jazz Festival. To mark the release of Gratitude, they are embarking on an extensive European tour, with dates in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Romania. Their website, linked at the end of this article, offers full details.
As with all the best records, this one feels almost too brief. I find myself playing it again and again, listening for the details that reveal themselves only slowly: the exquisite use of silence, the micro-gestures that turn arrangement into art, the fleeting nuances that lift a composition into something more enduring. In this domain, the trio is unmatched. They tend to each sound, each phrase, each quiet space with a depth, generosity, and humanity that one rarely encounters in contemporary jazz.
Gratitude is not merely another album. It is, in many ways, a gesture of offering, a carefully shaped gift extended to its listeners. And perhaps that is what makes the Søren Bebe Trio so essential today: their capacity to create music that feels both deeply personal and quietly universal.
In a jazz landscape that is increasingly fragmented, their work stands as a reminder that beauty, subtlety, and emotional truth still matter. And if the past is any indication, this album will not only satisfy longtime admirers but open the door for countless new ones, marking yet another step in the quiet, steady evolution of a trio that has never once stopped growing.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, December 4th 2025
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Musicians:
Søren Bebe | Piano
Kasper Tagel | Bass
Knut Finsrud | Drums
Track Listing:
- Frostblad 4:24
- Good Enough 3:53
- Tystrup Sø 5:00
- A Much Simpler Song 5:01
- And So It Goes 4:46
- Silent Listener 3:43
- Chico 3:39
- Throw It Away 4:43
- Gratitude 3:57
Total playing time 39:03
All songs composed by Søren Bebe except ‘And So It Goes’ by Billy Joel & ‘Throw It Away’ by Abbey Lincoln
Background info/ Liner Notes:
Produced by Søren Bebe
Recorded on 4 & 5 April 2025 by August Wanngren at The V-Recording, Denmark
Piano tuning by Christian Laub
Mixed by August Wanngren at Virkeligheden, Copenhagen, Denmark
Mastered by John Fomsgaard at KarmaCrew, Møn, Denmark
Artwork by Veselic&Veselic, Serbia
Label & Distribution: From Out Here Music / Soren Bebe Music