Jan Bang

Jan Bang (2019)
Image: Tore Sætre

Jan Bang (born August 21, 1968 in Kristiansand ) is a Norwegian musician, DJ and record producer. Bang's specialty is programming and live sampling.

Live and act

In the late 1980s, Bang played with Erik Honoré in the formation Woodlands , which released an album of the same name in 1988. He made his solo debut in 1989 with the album Frozen Feelings on which Morten Harket and Sidsel Endresen appeared as guest vocalists. This was followed by some work as a producer for Norwegian artists such as Bertine Zetlitz or Bel Canto , before he released his second solo album Pop Killer in 1998. Here, too, he worked again with renowned guest musicians, including Nils Petter Molvær , Bugge Wesseltoft and Arild Andersen . The album - which was nominated for the Spellemann Prize in 1999 in the Dance category - mixes Bang House, Jazz and Pop.

Two years later he teamed up again with Erik Honoré. The two subsequently release two albums on the border between jazz, electronics and contemporary music. On Birth Wish (2000), Bang and Honoré work with jazz musicians Arve Henriksen and Christian Wallumrød . Going Nine Ways From Wednesday , published in 2001, is a collaboration with the poet and writer Nils Christian Moe-Repstad and the singer Anne Marie Almedal from Velvet Belly . Bang also wrote the music for the film Ballen i øyet (2000).

In the following years Bang could be heard among others with Dhafer Youssef . In 2004 he was awarded the Gammleng Prize in the "Studio" category. In 2005 he founded the Punkt-Festival - again together with Erik Honoré . The annual event in Kristiansand is intended to be a platform for experimental music and give musicians from all over the world the opportunity to exchange experiences. In 2010 another album was released under his own name, .... and poppies from Kandahar (SamadhiSound, 2010), on which Arve Henriksen, Nils Petter Molvær, Bugge Wesseltoft, Eivind Aarset , Sidsel Endresen and Erik Honoré contributed. With Henriksen, Honoré, Tigran Hamasyan and Robert Jürjendal, he composed the score for the feature film Victoria (2013) by director Torun Lian , which was orchestrated by Gaute Storaas.

Discography (selection)

• Narratives from the Subtropics (Jazzland Rec, 2013)
• Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Gaute Storaas, Arve Henriksen: Knut Hamsun's Victoria (Filmmusik / Jazzland Rec, 2013)
• Jan Bang / Erik Honoré: Uncommon Deities (2012)
• ... And Poppies From Kandahar (Samadhisound, 2010)
• Going Nine Ways From Wednesday (Pan m Records, 2001)
• Birth Wish (Pan m Records, 2000)
• Pop Killer (Virgin, 1998)
• Frozen Feelings ( CBS , 1989); the title song is the film music in the credits of the Icelandic film Foxtrot (1988; director: Jón Tryggvason)
• Woodlands (T23, 1988)

Web links

• Jan Bang: Head, Shoulders, Hips, Knees and Toes - Feature by John Kelman in All About Jazz