Ivar Grydeland belongs to a young generation of Norwegian jazzmen that quickly took Scandinavia and Europe by storm starting in 2000. A co-founder of the avant-garde jazz/free improv label Sofa, this guitarist has performed in one of
Tony Oxley's trios and is a core member of
No Spaghetti Edition.
Grydeland was born in 1976. From 1996 to 2000 he studied at the music academy in his hometown Trondheim, an institution also frequented in those years by
Paal Nilssen-Love,
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten,
Ingar Zach, and a number of other young players eager to take Norwegian avant-garde jazz away from the quiet pastures of the ECM label sound and into something more raw and powerful. A scene got organized in the late '90s, and fresh out of school,
Grydeland gave the wheel a good push by co-founding Sofa with musical partners
Ingar Zach and
Karl Seglem. The label's first released was
Tony Oxley's Triangular Screen, recorded following a short Norwegian tour where the famous British free improviser played in a trio with bassist
Tonny Kluften and
Grydeland. A session with
Zach followed. In 2001, the guitarist co-founded the large-scale improv group
No Spaghetti Edition.
Grydeland toured Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia in September 2001 with
Zach, and England a few months later with
No Spaghetti Edition. He also performs free jazz with drummer
Jon Christensen and noise-based improv with guitarist
Øyvind Torvund. A quartet session with
Zach,
Phil Wachsmann, and
Charlotte Hug came out in November 2002. ~ François Couture