Nikolaj Hess featuring Sasha Dobson – An Exclusive Meeting of Nordic Poetry and New York Cool
Internationally acclaimed Danish pianist and composer Nikolaj Hess presents an exclusive collaboration with the charismatic American vocalist Sasha Dobson — known from New York’s vibrant jazz and indie scene, and as a member of the trio Puss n Boots with Norah Jones (with whom Dobson also performs in Copenhagen on July 10 & 11) and Catherine Popper.

Hess and Dobson have long moved in the same jazz and roots circles of New York’s downtown scene, and now, for the first time, they join forces for a live concert.

Together, Hess and Dobson create an intimate, atmospheric, and boundary-pushing universe where heartfelt jazz, American songwriting, Nordic melancholy, and playful improvisation merge in a musical meeting defined by presence and poetry. Audiences can expect a blend of original compositions and deeply personal interpretations of select classics ...

Nikolaj Hess featuring Sasha Dobson – An Exclusive Meeting of Nordic Poetry and New York Cool
Internationally acclaimed Danish pianist and composer Nikolaj Hess presents an exclusive collaboration with the charismatic American vocalist Sasha Dobson — known from New York’s vibrant jazz and indie scene, and as a member of the trio Puss n Boots with Norah Jones (with whom Dobson also performs in Copenhagen on July 10 & 11) and Catherine Popper.

Hess and Dobson have long moved in the same jazz and roots circles of New York’s downtown scene, and now, for the first time, they join forces for a live concert.

Together, Hess and Dobson create an intimate, atmospheric, and boundary-pushing universe where heartfelt jazz, American songwriting, Nordic melancholy, and playful improvisation merge in a musical meeting defined by presence and poetry. Audiences can expect a blend of original compositions and deeply personal interpretations of select classics — delivered with artistic imagination and a unique synergy between two musicians whose shared musicality transcends genres and geography.

Nikolaj Hess is one of Denmark’s most prominent pianists, renowned for his lyrical, virtuosic, and improvisational style. He has performed with international artists such as Lee Konitz, Fela Kuti, Marc Mommaas, and Caroline Henderson, and has recently given solo concerts at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum, and The Getty Museum in the U.S.

Sasha Dobson brings a raw yet refined vocal presence to the collaboration, with deep roots in jazz, folk, and rock. Her voice moves effortlessly between intimate nuance and expressive power, and her ability to convey both poetry and emotional depth makes her a truly singular voice on today’s vocal scene.
This concert offers a rare opportunity to experience two powerful artists in an organic, living, and uniquely personal constellation — where space is given to nuance, depth, and spontaneity, and where the audience is invited into the heart of the music.

A Purist, Nuanced New Jazz Album From Chanteuse Sasha Dobson
by delarue
These days Sasha Dobson may be best known for her work as a multi-instrumentalist in the supertrio Puss N Boots with Norah Jones and Catherine Popper. Dobson’s own work is more jazz-focused, with a nuanced Brazilian streak. Interestingly, on her new album Girl Talk – streaming at Spotify – Dobson appears strictly on the mic, even though she’s just as much at home behind the drum kit as she is on bass, guitar or keys. Fans of iconic Golden Age singers – Billie, Sarah, Dinah and the rest – will appreciate Dobson’s uncluttered, thoughtful, original style.

This time out, she’s pulled together an allstar cast with Peter Bernstein on guitar, Dred Scott on piano, Neal Miner on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. She opens with Better Days, casually slinging torrents of lyrics over an increasingly syncopated bossa pulse fleshed out by Bernstein’s erudite chords.

She spices Sweet and Lovely with some coy scatting, shadowed by Bernstein as the bass and drums edge into straight-ahead swing and then the guitarist’s signature litany of chordal variations. The album’s title track, a sly, low-key duet with Jones, celebrates female bonding – in an era where the Biden regime wants to get rid of moms and substitute “birth parents” instead, we need that bonding more than ever.

A hazy bolero lowlit by her brother Smith Dobson’s spare vibes, Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps has a misterioso understatement in contrast to Wollesen’s colorful cymbal work. The bandleader brings judiciously modulated acerbity to her lyrics in You’re the Death of Me over the band’s low-key stroll, then follows with a distantly Blossom Dearie-tinged delivery in The Great City. In her hands, Dobson it’s more about perseverance than urban angst.

Her take of Softly As in a Morning Sunrise reinvents the song as spare, sun-dappled, straight-up swing, with some unexpectedly biting blues phrasing. The chime of the vibes and the brushy guitar chords in Time on My Hands are a characteristically understated touch beneath Dobson’s low-key optimism.

She joins with Miner in a spare bass-and-vocal duet to open Autumn Nocturne, then the band swing it gently, Bernstein choosing his spots to raise the energy. Dobson winds up the album by transforming a big Nancy Sinatra hit into a swing blues with jaunty harmonies from special guests Steven Bernstein on trumpet and Ian Hendrickson Smith on tenor sax....

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