Harald Lassen

Harald Lassen
Birth name	Harald Hagen Lassen
Born	(1987-03-13) 13 March 1987 Kristiansand, Vest-Agder
Origin	Norway
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer
Instruments	Saxophone, piano, percussions, vocals
Labels	Jazzland Recordings Cuneiform Records NorCD Havtorn Records
Associated acts	Duplex Mopti Pixel
Website	haraldlassen.com

Harald Lassen (born 13 March 1987 in Kristiansand, Norway) is a Norwegian jazz musician who has devoted his career exclusively to his own band. His unpredictable, but characteristic, mixture of saxophone, voice, effects and percussion has become his "brand". He is also a composer, and known from the bands Pixel, Mopti (feat. Bendik Baksaas on the album Bits & Pieces) and DUPLEX. He was in an early age picked up by legendary musicians such as bass player Arild Andersen and drummer Jon Christensen . Recent years he has played with musicians such as Bugge Wesseltoft, Morten Qvenild, Emilie Stoesen Christensen, Beady Belle, Ole Morten Vågan, Espen Rud, Anja Lauvdal, Rob Waring, Mathias Eick, Ray Phiri, Ruaridh Pattison, Ediz Hafizoglu Nazdrave and Torgrim Sollid among many others. He also played with the Norwegian rock band "The Switch" in their early years and again joined(2016) the Norwegian pop band No. 4 after two years break between 2014 and 2016 - concentrating on his own career.

Career

Lassen was raised in Greipstad, Songdalen. He took up the saxophone after many years of playing the piano. He attended the Toneheim Folkehøgskole (2006–07), Unviersitetet i Agdera- Institutt for rytmisk musikk(2007–08)nd did further studies in jazz and improvised music at the Norwegian Academy of Music (2008–12).

Since 2012 Lassen has been working as a freelance musician with saxophone as the main instrument, with base in Oslo. Collaborating with bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen in the duo "DUPLEX Lassen & Svendsen", and in bands like "Mopti" including Svendsen, Kristoffer Eikrem (trumpet), David Aleksander Sjølie (guitar) and Andreas Wildhagen (drums), and "Pixel" including Ellen Andrea Wang (bass and vocals), Jon Audun Baar (drums, percussion and backing vocals), and Jonas Kilmork Vemøy (trumpet and backing vocals), he has released several acclaimed albums, and the gig by "Pixel" was noted as "one of the most memorable moments" of the Match and Fuse Festival in London 2012, by the jazz magazine Down Beat.

Lassen has worked with African musicians and dancers in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda. In 2013 Lassen moved to Zanzibar for three months to teach and build up a jazz department for young music students at Dhow Countries Music Academy.

Lassen is currently a board member of Oslo Jazzfestival (2015).

Honors

• 2012: "This year's young jazz musicians", the Jazzintro award at Moldejazz, within Mopti
• 2013: Featured at Young Nordic Jazz Comets within Pixel

Discography

His own projects

Within Pixel

• 2012: Reminder (Cuneiform Records)
• 2013: We Are All Small Pixels (Cuneiform Records)
• 2015: Golden Years (Cuneiform Records)

Within Duplex

• 2013: Duolia (NorCD)
• 2013: Sketches Of ... (NorCD)
• 2015: Èn (NorCD)

Within Mopti

• 2013: Logic (Jazzland Recordings)
• 2015: Bits & Pieces (Jazzland Recordings)

Other collaborations

With No. 4

• 2015: Henda i været (Arch)

With Dr. Kay and his Interstellar Tone Scientists

2013

• Dr. Kay and the search for true happiness (Bangles and Brass Records)

With Bendik Baksaas Band

• 2012: The Shape of Beats To Come (Dayladore Collective), feat. on "Nobody Will Laugh»

With Andrea Kvintett

• 2012: Andrea Kvintett (NorCD)