Nils Petter Molvær

Nils Petter Molvær is a Norwegian trumpet player, composer and producer, who is known also as NPM. Born in 1960 on the island of Sula. He is considered a pioneer of future jazz, a genre that fuses jazz and electronic music, best showcased on his most commercially successful album, Khmer. By the way he takes multiple music styles – jazz, ambient, house, electronic and break beats, as well as elements from hip hop, rock and pop music – and effortlessly reshapes them into unique and dramatic soundscapes of deep intensity.

Molvaer has his own very individual sound, influenced as much by the poetry of Scandinavian nature as by electronic calculation, and last but not least by colleagues like Miles Davis and Jon Hassell. But more than anything else, Molvaer has himself. Listening to him play, it’s easy to forget that his instrument is a trumpet. His remarkable ease in handling the often-contrary conventions of pop, rock, funk, and modern jazz ensured a strong interest in both acoustic and electric music. This chameleon-like ability soon established him as a much sought-after musician in Oslo, which ultimately led to his a colourful and diverse curriculum vitae as a sideman.