Mats Eilertsen

Mats Eilertsen is an oft-recorded jazz bassist and composer from Trondheim, Norway. He not only leads his own groups, but plays in several others groups including the Alexi Tuomaril Trio and Håkon Kornstad Trio, and is a prolific session player. As a leader, Eilertsen has issued more than a dozen albums under his own name since 2004, including that year’s Turanga, 2011′s SkyDive, and two albums for ECM including 2016′s Rubicon and 2019′s And Then Comes the Night. Hymn for Hope followed in 2021, and in 2024, he joined experimental octet Hlaskontrabasoktet, an ensemble of four double bassists and four vocalists. Their debut, Kaleidoscapes, was released in July. Eilertsen was born in Trondheim, and began his formal music studies on piano and bass there. He majored in jazz studies at Trondheim Musikkonservatorium. As a student, he was a founding member of the jazz quintet Dingobats. Other members included saxophonist Eirik Hegdal, guitarist Thomas Dahl, and drummer Sverre Gjørvad. They issued their debut album, The New Dingobats Generation, in 1998. The band became a club favorite and issued two further albums before disbanding in 2004. Even as a member of Dingobats, Eilertsen was busy collaborating in other projects. From 2000-2004, he was an active member of Food with Thomas Strønen, Iain Ballamy, and Arve Henriksen, and played on their first four albums. He also played bass in the Håkon Kornstad Trio, which won a Kongsberg Jazz Award in 2002 for the album Space Available. The bassist also appeared on guitarist Jacob Young’s ECM debut Evening Falls in 2004. After the Dingobats split, the bassist founded the quartet Turanga with cellist Ernst Reijseger, saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist, and Strønen on drums. Their 2005 self-titled debut album is commonly regarded as Eilertsen’s debut solo effort. He followed it with the same unit on Flux a year later. In 2008, Eilertsen played on Young’s Sideways date, and joined Tord Gustavsen’s band — which also recorded for ECM — on Restored, Returned. A year later Eilertsen issued his third album, Radio Yonder, on Hubro, a jazz and improvised music imprint of Norway’s largest independent label Grappa Musikkforlag. His accompanists were saxophonist Tore Brunborg, drummer Olavi Louhivuori, and Dahl on guitar. With a trio he released Elegy for the label in 2010, accompanied by pianist Harmen Fraanje and Strønen. Eilertsen issued SkyDive for Hubro in 2011 with the Radio Yonder personnel and Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila, and a year later was a member of Gustavsen’s quartet on The Well, issued by ECM. He also played bass on pianist Yelena Eckemoff’s trio date Forget-Me-Not with Marilyn Mazur on drums. In 2013, Eilertsen’s trio — with Fraanje and Strønen — released Sails Set. The bassist rotated back to the Gustavsen band for 2014′s Extended Circle, and cemented his budding relationship with ECM. A year later, he was credited as double bassist on Mathias Eick’s Midwest and Nils Økland’s Kjølvatn. Eilertsen issued his own debut for ECM in 2016. Entitled Rubicon, it was based on and developed from a work he’d written under commission from the Vossajazz Festival. He was accompanied by saxophonists Trygve Seim and Hegdal (the latter also played clarinets), Dahl on guitar, Rob Waring on marimba and vibraphone, Fraanje on piano and Fender Rhodes, and Louhivuori on drums. The album was issued in August. In 2018, Eilertsen paired with guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne for Meander, and the following year his trio with Fraanje and Strønen made its ECM debut with And Then Comes the Night. He followed it with a pair of dates for Hubro: Reveries and Revelations, an expansive outing that saw him playing basses, drums, guitar, and keyboards, with select collaborators including Henriksen, Strønen, and Eivind Aarset. In 2020 he issued a second album with Meyer Lysne titled Kroksjø and followed with the solo bass outing Solitude Central a year later — it had been recorded during the pandemic. Eilertsen led a quartet on 2021′s Hymn for Hope, an album that walked a loping path between contemporary European jazz, improvisation, electric jazz, and post-bop. He collaborated with trumpeter Hildegunn Øiseth and keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft on Suite for Gaia in 2023. He was a longtime member of the Alexi Tuomarila Trio (since 2013) who released Departing the Wasteland in 2024. In addition, Eilertsen joined the experimental octet Hlaskontrabasoktet alongside three other double bassists and four vocalists. Kaleidoscapes, their debut album, appeared in July from ArkivMusic. ~ Thom Jurek