Mats Eilertsen is an oft-recorded jazz bassist and composer from Trondheim, Norway. He not only leads his own groups, but is an in-demand session player throughout Northern Europe.
Eilertsen majored in jazz studies at Trondheim Musikkonservatorium. As a student, he was a founding member of the jazz quintet
Dingobats. Other members included saxophonist
Eirik Hegdal, guitarist
Thomas Dahl, and drummer
Sverre Gjørvad. They issued their debut album, The New Dingobats Generation, in 1998. The band became a club favorite and issued two further albums before disbanding in 2004. Even as a member of
Dingobats,
Eilertsen was busy collaborating in other projects. From 2000-2004, he was an active member of
Food with
Thomas Strønen,
Iain Ballamy, and
Arve Henriksen, and played on their first four albums. He also played bass in the
Håkon Kornstad Trio, which won a Kongsberg Jazz Award in 2002 for the album Space Available. The bassist also appeared on guitarist
Jacob Young's
ECM debut
Evening Falls in 2004.
After the
Dingobats split, the bassist founded the quartet Turanga with cellist
Ernst Reijseger, saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist, and
Strønen on drums. Their 2005 self-titled debut album is commonly regarded as
Eilertsen's debut solo effort. He followed it with the same unit on Flux a year later. In 2008,
Eilertsen played on
Young's Sideways date, and joined
Tord Gustavsen's band -- which also recorded for
ECM -- on
Restored, Returned. A year later
Eilertsen issued his third album,
Radio Yonder, on Hubro, a jazz and improvised music imprint of Norway's largest independent label Grappa Musikkforlag. His accompanists were saxophonist
Tore Brunborg, drummer
Olavi Louhivuori, and
Dahl on guitar.
With a trio he released Elegy for the label in 2010, accompanied by pianist
Harmen Fraanje and
Strønen.
Eilertsen issued
SkyDive for Hubro in 2011 with the
Radio Yonder personnel and Finnish pianist
Alexi Tuomarila, and a year later was a member of
Gustavsen's quartet on
The Well, issued by
ECM. He also played bass on pianist
Yelena Eckemoff's trio date Forget-Me-Not with
Marilyn Mazur on drums. In 2013,
Eilertsen's trio -- with
Fraanje and
Strønen -- released
Sails Set. The bassist rotated back to the
Gustavsen band for 2014's
Extended Circle, and cemented his budding relationship with
ECM. A year later, he was credited as double bassist on
Mathias Eick's
Midwest and
Nils Økland's
Kjølvatn.
Eilertsen issued his own debut for
ECM in 2016. Entitled
Rubicon, it was based on and developed from a work he'd written under commission from the Vossajazz Festival. He was accompanied by saxophonists
Trygve Seim and
Hegdal (the latter also played clarinets),
Dahl on guitar,
Rob Waring on marimba and vibraphone,
Fraanje on piano and Fender Rhodes, and
Louhivuori on drums. The album was issued in August. In 2018,
Eilertsen paired with guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne for Meander, and the following year his trio with
Fraanje and
Strønen made its
ECM debut with
And Then Comes the Night. ~ Thom Jurek