Dawda Jobarteh & Stefan Pasborg
Biography Dawda Jobarteh & Stefan Pasborg
Dawda Jobarteh & Stefan Pasborg
are unique on many levels. The duo is beyond genre and at times quite far reaching. The emotionally and electrically charged cover pieces are aggressive, shifting and challenging as they deconstruct sound and create an organic alternative to conventional expectations. The more customary pieces still manage to merge
African tradition, world-beat percussion and unusual instrumentation to produce a fundamentally innovative and expressively stimulating sound.
Dawda Jobarteh
was born in the Gambia in 1976 in a griot family. He started playing the drums at age seven and from age 12 he started to go and play concerts with his uncle Malamin Jobarteh and his cousins Pa Bobo Jobarteh and Tata Dindin Jobarteh’s Salaam Band. Around this time he also started to teach tourists playing the drums. In 1996 Dawda was on his first tour outside West Africa in France and Germany, and in 1997 he was on a big tour arranged by WOMAD. In 1999 Dawda moved to Denmark where he is still living. In Denmark Dawda took up his family instrument, the kora and little by little made it his main instrument. Today Dawda is mainly a kora player and composer inspired by both traditional and modern West African music as well as influences from all over the world. In 2011 Dawda released his debutalbum Northern Light Gambian Night which was evaluated as one of the best albums of the year by Songlines. In 2012 the album was nominated as best album at Danish Music Awards World.
Stefan Pasbord
One of the most personal and versatile young European drummers / bandleaders – from groove to abstract! Three time Danish Music Awards-winner Stefan Pasborg is a highly energetic drummer from the melting pot of Copenhagen, and after getting a snare drum, a cymbal and a high-hat at the age of three from renowned jazz drummer Alex Riel, he has developed into a very personal musician on the European jazz scene... And has toured the most of Europe and in USA, Canada, Africa and Asia - in more than 30 countries, on 5 continents, from Shanghai to Vancouver, from Monte-Carlo to Moscow, from Varanger to Casablanca, and from New York to São Paulo - both as a leader and as a sideman. ... Pasborg has won prices like f.ex. the Soloist-prize at ʻ16th European Jazz Contestʼ in Germany, the 1st Prize at ʻ5th European Tournament of Improvised Musicʼ in France, ʻJazznytprisenʼ in Denmark...
