Origin Norway Name Jon Larsen Instruments guitar Role Guitarist | Movies Jon & Jimmy | |
Born 7 January 1959 (age 65) Baerum, Norway ( 1959-01-07 ) Occupation(s) musician, composer, painter Website www.hotclub.no/jonlarsen/index.html Albums Jon & Jimmy: Dreams, Drugs and Django Similar People Jimmy Rosenberg, Tommy Mars, Per Frydenlund, Angelo Debarre, Ola Kvernberg | ||
Associated acts Hot Club de Norvege | ||
Irene's GJ Adventures 228: Meet Jon Larsen - Music & Science - (DOC 48 min.)
Jon Larsen (born 7 January 1959) is a gypsy jazz guitarist, record producer, surrealist painter, and scientific researcher. He is the founder of the group Hot Club de Norvège (1979–), the record labels Hot Club Records (1982–) and Zonic Entertainment (2007–), the Django Festival (1980–), Symphonic Django (2005-), the book publishing company Den Gyldne Banan (2009–), and Project Stardust. In 2007 he received the Buddy Award for his lifelong contribution to jazz.
Contents
- Irenes GJ Adventures 228 Meet Jon Larsen Music Science DOC 48 min
- Jon larsen gitarist utdrag fra gamle tv opptak 1982 2007
- Career
- Paintings
- Awards and honors
- Solo works
- Within Hot Club de Norvge
- Main compositions
- Books
- Film
- References
Jon larsen gitarist utdrag fra gamle tv opptak 1982 2007
Career
When he was in his early teens, he learned rock and soul songs on an acoustic steel-string guitar. Through friends, he learned about blues, jazz, flamenco, and classical guitar. After he heard "Tears" by Django Reinhardt on the radio, he decided that this is how he wanted his guitar to sound. At seventeen he formed a string trio and had his first professional job.
He started the Hot Club de Norvege in 1980 with guitarists Per Frydenlund and bassist Svein Aarbostad. They had a hit record when they performed with pop singer Lillebjørn Nilsen. Larsen started the label Zonic Entertainment to record musicians who have been influenced by Frank Zappa. He has worked with Chet Baker, Philip Catherine, Stéphane Grappelli, Warne Marsh, Biréli Lagrène, Babik Reinhardt, Jimmy Rosenberg, Stochelo Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre, Florin Niculescu, Andreas Öberg, Nappy Brown, and Adrien Moignard. He has produced more than 450 jazz records for the label he founded, Hot Club Records.
He has led the group Strange News from Mars with musicians who played with Zappa, including Arthur Barrow, Jimmy Carl Black, Bruce Fowler, Bunk Gardner, Tommy Mars, and Don Preston.
Symphonic Django was released in 2008 by Storm Films, which also produced a documentary about Larsen and guitar virtuoso Jimmy Rosenberg titled Jon & Jimmy. In 2012, the documentary won the Dutch Edison Award.
Paintings
Jon Larsen started out as a painter, inspired by surrealism, especially Salvador Dalí. He made his debut solo exhibition of pictures as early as April 1976, the same month he had his first gig with the string trio Clo-Z. This was followed by annual exhibitions until 1995, when he started composing music full-time. From 1976–'78 he received training in drawing by his mentor, the Polish artist Ryszard Warsinski. In 1978 he moved to Barcelona to study with Salvador Dalí and became a part of the Catalán surrealist movement. In 1979 he returned to Norway and established the jazz quartet Hot Club de Norvège but continued to paint full-time. Larsen's paintings are often atmospheric landscapes, filled with stones, mountains, and unexpected objects, and are often humorous or whimsical. A book about Jon Larsen's surrealistic pictures, Maler i solnedgang (170 pictures, text in Norwegian), was released in May 2009. In 2011 a retrospective exhibition with Jon 42 of Larsen's main works was held in Trondheim and Ålesund.