1970s – 2020sPeak: 1990s
Norwegian Jazz
About Norwegian Jazz
The cool, spacious Nordic jazz sound that the Munich label ECM built into a global aesthetic from the 1970s onward. Jan Garbarek, with his keening saxophone tone drawn from Norwegian folk melody, became the most recognisable voice in European jazz; his 1994 album Officium with the Hilliard Ensemble sold over a million copies. Bugge Wesseltoft's New Conception of Jazz pushed the tradition into electronica in the 1990s, founding the nu-jazz movement.