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Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was born in Osted, Denmark on May 27, 1946. He played piano as a child and took up playing the double bass in his teens to play duets with his pianist friend, Ole Kock Hansen.

Quickly mastering the bass, he made his first recording when he was 14. By 1961, Pedersen was playing regularly at the Montmartre Club in Copenhagen. During this period, he occasionally recorded with such jazz stars as Bill Evans, Brew Moore and Bud Powell. 1

Throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Pedersen recorded with many artists in a variety of genres, from mainstream, to bop, to free jazz, including several duo albums with Kenny Drew, Joe Pass and Archie Shepp. His time with Oscar Peterson from the 1970s to the late 80s solidified his international reputation as a player with "a perfect sense of rhythm and compelling walking bass lines." Together, they toured Europe and America and recorded over 55 albums.

Niels is well known for his "rapid solo lines in the higher register of the bass and at playing pizzicato with three or four fingers of his right hand". 2


Selected Recordings:

Duo, with Kenny Drew (1973, Steeplechase 1002)
Big Six at the Montreux Jazz Festival, with Oscar Peterson (1975, Pablo 2310747)
Chops, with Joe Pass (1978, Pablo 2310830)
The Paris Concert, with Oscar Peterson (1978, PL 2620112)
Night Child, with the Oscar Peterson Quartet (1979, Pablo Today 2312 108)
Live at the Northsea Jazz Festival, with Oscar Peterson (1980, Pablo 2620-115)
Nigerian Marketplace, with the Oscar Peterson Trio (1981, Pablo Live D2308231)
If You Could See Me Now, with the Oscar Peterson Quartet (1983, Pablo 2310-918)


Footnotes

1 Larkin, Colin.   The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.   United Kingdom: Muze Ltd, 1988.

2 Kernfeld, Barry.   The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.   London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988.

O.P. & Friends

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