Palle Mikkelborg "Anything But Grey" (1992)

Anything But Grey

release date: Apr. 9, 1992

format: vinyl (COL 471614 1) / cd (COL 471614 2)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]

producer: Òli Poulsen

label: Columbia - nationality: Denmark

Track highlights: 1. "Prince of Peace" (4 / 5) - 2. "Glass Painting" - 3. "Queen of the Night" - 4. "A Time to Keep" - 5. "The Naked Facts" - 7. "Concrete Muse" - 8. "Capricorn" - 9. "Smile"

Studio solo album by Palle Mikkelborg following the collaboration album Hommage - Once Upon a Time (1990) made with N.H.Ø.P. All compositions are by Mikkelborg except "Smile" by Charles Chaplin. The album consists of nine tracks with a total running time just exceeding 51 minutes.

Stylewise, the album follows Mikkelborg's late 80s and 90s style of airy fusion / avant-garde jazz with focus on melody.

The album doesn't appear to have been met by great enthusiasm, but for me, it's a most wonderful and warm contemporary jazz album - perhaps much treasured because I actually purchased the album on its release. I have played the cd so many times that it ended up being impossible to play without tracks skipping or forcing my cd player to call it quits. Luckily, I managed to copy the content to FLAC format and thereby saving this splendid album.

Mikkelborg both dwells on near-ambient compositions and more fusion-like songs, e.g. "Glass Painting" with an ever-present influence from Miles Davis and his 80s albums: You're Under Arrest (Apr. 1985), Tutu (Sep. 1986), and Amandla (May 1989), but the overall sensation is still one of strong original coherency thanks to Mikkelborg's characteristic flugelhorn.

Highly recommended.

Miles Davis "Aura" (1989)

Aura
release date: Sep. 12, 1989
format: vinyl 2 lp (463351 1)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,44]
producer: Palle Mikkelborg
label: CBS Records - nationality: USA

Studio double album by Miles Davis following the album Amandla (May 1989), which in many ways was a close follow-up to the album Tutu (also with Marcus Miller as primary artist). In comparison, Aura stands much on its own. The album follows only four months after Amandla and is produced and composed by Danish trumpeter and composer Palle Mikkelborg.
Musically, the album could be seen as more of a follow-up to Davis' album Decoy (Jun. 1984) and his role and experimentation with jazz fusion in the 1970s, which also had an impact on the formative style of Mikkelborg himself. The album was met by critical acclaim but failed to attract the same audience as Tutu (Sep. 1986) and Amandla. In this regard, Aura is both a more experimental and simplistic release but also much more of a contemporary jazz release than one that seeks to blend in styles from popular music. And that possibly also explains why I initially found it a difficult album to understand. In hindsight though, I see Aura as much more of a timeless album when comparing with other albums by Davis in the 1980s. That alone doesn't make it easily digestible. Aura is the final studio album by Davis and in music historic perspective, a fine last album with more to offer than meets the ear on a first, a second, and even on multiple encounters, but with some persistence, I have at least found its underlying beauty.
[ 👍👍allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Musichound Jazz 4 / 5, 👉The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings 4 / 4 stars ]

Mikkelborg / Knudsen / NHØP "Heart to Heart" (1986)

Heart to Heart
release date: Jan. 1, 1986
format: vinyl (SLP 4114)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]
producer: Mikkelborg, Knudsen, NHØP
label: Storyville Records - nationality: Denmark

Collaboration album credited Mikkelborg / Knudsen / NHØP, which means former band members trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg and keyboardist Kenneth Knudsen of the jazz fusion band Entrance together with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. The album consists of seven compositions of which Knudsen is credited three (tracks A1, A3, A4), Mikkelborg two (tracks (A2, B2), NHØP one (track B3), and one cover song "Imagine" by John Lennon (track B1).

Stylistically, it's jazz fusion, fusion rock, and free improvisation, and as a whole, the album comes out as a fine coherent release. Some compositions are melody-based and pop-oriented with a sense for song structure with recurring themes, whereas others are more complex in style, composition, and in arrangements - this is also made clear by running times. Five of the seven tracks have running times under 5 minutes, but two tracks (A2 & B2) are considerably longer with B2 running nearly 11 minutes.
Imho, the album is wonderful with bonds to the heydays of Entrance as well as Mikkelborg and NHØP's later solo works.

Entrance "Entrance" (1977)

Entrance [debut]

release date: Nov. 1977

format: vinyl (MLP 15612 - gatefold)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]

producer: Entrance

label: Metronome - nationality: Denmark

Studio album debut by Danish jazz-fusion band Entrance founded by trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg (also credited on keyboard, piano, and flugelhorn), keyboardist Kenneth Knudsen, saxophonist Jesper Nehammer, bassist Bo Stief, and percussionist Kasper Winding. The album contains eight compositions, four on each side, and with Mikkelborg composer of four tracks, and Knudsen and Winding of two each.

Entrance play their own original version of jazz fusion inspired by Weather Report, Santana, Miles Davis, and other acts playing world fusion.

This particular album stands as a cornerstone in Danish music, and paved way for individual international careers for especially Mikkelborg, Knudsen, and Stief.