New Album, The Concert of Europe - Sep 2023

 

JONAS HELLBORG - bass

GINGER BAKER - drums

BERNIE WORRELL - keyboards

This is a moment frozen in time of when ex. Cream drummer and Parliament Funkadelic-founder / keyboard-wizard Bernie Worrell got together with bass wunderkind Jonas Hellborg to create a unique musical statement that avoided the obvious and showed the fantastic integration of musical confluences that still flowed at that time.

Bernie brought his classical mind rather than the funk. Ginger brought the complexities of African drumming fused with Jazz.

Hellborg brought the freedom to go in any direction without hesitation or adherence to conventional wisdom or expectation. Somehow during the 2 years of touring they forgot to make a record, but after 35 years here it is.

Better late than never.

***

"In 1984 I was on tour with John McLaughlin, first with Mahavishnu we had a show in New York were I was introduced to producer Bill Laswell by Michael Shrieve. He (Bill) played me a recording he had just done with Ginger Baker. I was intrigued and impressed with the drumming and asked Bill if I could have Ginger's contact info. A few months later John and myself had a European tour as a duo. As we played Italy close to where Ginger was living at the time I called him up and through the harsh language I could tell that I was speaking to a real person with a heart of gold. For the next 4 years or so we did a lot of playing together.

The main lineup on our tours was Ginger, me and (legendary keyboard) player Bernie Worrell (P-Funk, Talking Heads and more, too much to mention). Bernie had helped me out on my first international record "Axis". This trio was a pleasure to play with, and a great hang. Ginger privately at this time was, believe it or not (considering his present reputation) a rather jovial fellow. Constantly singing old English Music Hall hits, dancing around and playing spoons. One of these musical travels brought us to the Bracknell Jazz Festival. Ginger was at the time (unnecessarily) afraid of the UK taxman so he performed as Pete Edwards. The days after we recorded for 3 days at a studio called Marcus Music where my very good late friend Tim Hunt was engineer. The resulting tapes have been sleeping ever since. Rediscovering them was truly wonderful. With the hope that you all, whoever is out there and interested will also enjoy hearing this late 20th century recording of 3 hard to categorize musicians flying under the radar, I give you The Concert of Europe!" Jonas Hellborg

The CD is available through Bardorecords.com. You can also order your copy right here:

 

Ritual Love-Death – fragment from album Ars Moriende, Jonas Hellborg acoustic bass guitar and Glen Velez percussion

THE CONCERT OF EUROPE: AN INTERVIEW WITH JONAS HELLBORG, BY NO TREBLE

A great interview with Jonas Hellborg on No Treble, seeing Ginger Baker with another set of eyes (and ears), getting the genius of Parliament Funkadelic's Bernie Worrell back into the spotlight and bringing in some fresh unheard music.

By Kevin Johnson, published on 22 February 2024

Uniting Nations - Interview by Anil Prasad, Innerviews

Anil Prasad develops his interviews with great depth and care, over a long time and from many discussions with the portrayed artist. The result is a very loyal insight into personal philosophies and outlook on life. This particular discussion with Jonas Hellborg has been causing a lot of stir and interest based on the points that Hellborg is making on the actual state of the music field and the world.
Read more

A Records Shop Owner in Rome on Hellborg’s latest CD

"It's a video about a great musician, so innundate this video with likes because culture should be promoted in all possible ways.
See here, this is Jonas Hellborg (shows CD).
Who is Jonas Hellborg? Most of you would know him as the bassist in the latest version of Mahavishu Orchestra, from Adventures in Radioland, but in reality this Swedish bassist - a sacred monster - has a vast career, in which he's always created products of the highest level, much more that just fusion... He collaborated with Bill Laswell, with the Johansson brothers from Yngwie Malmsteen, with Allan Holdsworth on the guitar, he's done so many different things, always imprinted with the highest cultural level. We are not talking just about fusion, but about experimenting with sound, a very progressive rock and a great passion for exploration.
In this European live album - on which he's playing together with the great Ginger Baker, the drummer from Cream, and Bernie Worrell, the keyboarder of Parliament Funkadelic - some great, great musicians - here they are in the picture - such a fantastic picture! ...he's following a crazy repertoire - absolutely crazy, it's going through an atmosphere of jazz through all sorts of styles into funk, with an incredible tightness, instrumental iterations and technical solutions of a mind-blowing level!
If it's true that the world's greatest bassist was Jaco Pastorius, then people, Jonas Hellborg is very close to that, and he deserves a big applause for never paying tribute to a certain genre like fusion, but always delivers uncategorised works of the highest level.
We highly recommend this album, especially since it's a CD that we only managed to get in very few copies, it's a stunning work, on a double neck bass - a real double madness! I can't grasp how this music happens, how they come together so greatly, Jonas with Ginger and Bernie.. It is to die for, people, one of the greatest bass players of the world, which not so many know of! And that's that! Cut!"
by EDF Point - records shop in Rome

Best Albums of 2023

The Concert of Europe, one of the best albums of 2023 according to Jazzfun.de.

The Hellborg Dogal Strings discussed with Bass Gear Magazine

YouTube video

Bass Gear Magazine's Freddy Villano sits down to talk with bass legend Jonas Hellborg regarding his signature Dogal Hellborg strings, and more!

Notes From An Artist

Notes From An Artist, Podcast - Bassist, recording artist, and label entrepreneur Jonas Hellborg reveals his studied opinions on streaming, artificial intelligence, and more with hosts David C. Gross and Tom Semioli.

Painting by Artist Luciana Tamas

This image is a painting of Jonas Hellborg by gifted artist Luciana Tamas , from one of her recent exhibitions, in Trieste, Italy.
The painting is seen here mirroring a video projection of Hellborg's live performance of a Swedish lullaby, this particular piece of visual and sound art being very often a part of Tamas' presentations.

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