THE CONCERT OF EUROPE

Jonas Hellborg’s new release is finally out: the CD “The Concert of Europe” is from the 1st of September 2023 in shops all over the world.

You can also order your copy right here:

…or on bardorecords.com

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