Marius Neset
Marius Neset is just 25 years old, yet as a musician and composer he brings an astonishing maturity to all his work. He was born in Bergen, Norway but moved to Copenhagen in 2003 to study at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. It was there that he met and studied with British keyboard virtuoso and composer Django Bates. Bates was quick to recognize the young man’s talents and Neset has been a member of Bates’ stoRMChaser big band since 2005. More recently, he has joined his former teacher’s small group Human Chain and played with the group to great acclaim at Ronnie Scott’s early in 2010.
Michael Brecker was Neset’s first influence on saxophone but he also learned a lot from Jeff Harrington, when he spent a semester at Berklee College of Music in 2002. To these early influences, Neset has more recently added those of Wayne Shorter and the tenor sax giant Joe Henderson. Neset is a very strong rhythm player and perhaps that is his greatest debt to Henderson.
As a composer, Neset’s influences are similarly diverse – Django Bates (with whom he studied composition), Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa and also Bach, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. Yet already, Neset has absorbed these influences and found his own musical language for expressing their virtues.
A multi-award winner, since graduating from RMC, Marius Neset has pursued his musical goals through different bands. His main project since 2005 has been JazzKamikaze. With its eclectic mix of jazz, rock, electronica and classical music, the group has had great international success playing concerts in Europe, Asia, both North and South America and Africa. People Are Machines provides another outlet with its emphasis on a diverse range of rhythmical concepts.
“No one at age 25 should be this good at their instrument. Neset masters the saxophone as if he was the double age. This is the situations where you can talk about a wonderkid. It’s not a daily thing to get the possibillity to hear a future star beeing born. Neset’s talent is genuine, and to think about how far he can reach is almost scary.” – Peter Sjöblom, Tidningen, Sweden
“Marius is an astonishing saxophonist. I love to hear him perform because he digests all the numerical games that drummers and bassists concoct and throws them straight back with harmony and melody attached. Performing in a band with Marius is like being on a bobsleigh team; his energy, speed of reflex, and superb technique enable him to keep changing up a gear, way beyond what one imagines humanly possible.” –DJANGO BATES
Guardian - read here in full (John Fordham)
“Marius Neset is one of the most exciting international jazz newcomers of the past year. The 25-year-old sax player crackles with youthful energy, and much of the first London performance of his UK tour saw the Norwegian frenetically weaving and rocking his way through music much closer to the upfront, contemporary-American jazz-sax style of the late Michael Brecker or New York’s Chris Potter”.
Evening Standard - read here in full (Jack Massarick)
“After Parker, Coltrane and Ornette Coleman have come Michael Brecker and Steve Coleman, all players of this most articulate of instruments. It’s been some while since a new game-changer emerged but the buzz surrounding Marius Neset suggests that he just might be it”.
Jazzwise Magazine - read here in full (Stephen Graham)
“Five star album reviews don’t come thick on the ground particularly for newcomers. But Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset garnered quite a clutch of primo reviews earlier in the year when his debut Golden Xplosion was released… So no pressure then! But, when you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll, and Neset, who while making his London jazz club debut as a leader, dazzled relentlessly in the Dean Street basement premises whether on languorous ballads, frenetic 7/4 (into was it 14/8?) stormers, or hymn-like anthems such as the wondrous finale ‘Angel Of The North’”.
Financial Times - read here in full (Mike Hobart)
“Technical excellence comes as standard for any working jazz group, but Marius Neset’s derring-do on tenor saxophone has a muscular virtuosity that is exciting in itself”.
Marius Neset has featured on the front cover of Norway’s Jazznytt Magazine
