PIANIST, SIR NIELS LAN DOKY

Hailed by the international press as “the best pianist of his generation” (Swing Journal, Japan) and “one of the most important European pianists of the last, now 50 years” (El Diario, Spain), Sir Niels Lan Doky’s level of virtuosity and musical excellence makes him a natural heir to the thrones of past jazz piano giants such as Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson. 

His music has been called “fresh and provocative” (New York Times) as well as “ultra lyrical”, his concerts “blissful and unforgettable” (Hot House, New York) and himself “a paragon of eloquence”. With improvisations characterized by thematic and harmonic ingeniousness, Doky is an extraordinary pianist with a wide range. He can be fiercely muscular and appropriately rhapsodic but is mostly known for his sparkling charisma and exceptional romantic sensibility. 

Born in Copenhagen in 1963 and knighted by HM The Queen of Denmark in 2010, Doky has performed for the world elite, on the most prestigious stages, with the greatest artists in jazz, and with orchestras such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Copenhagen Philharmonic. 

Aside from being an acclaimed pianist renowned for his own unique style, he is also a prolific composer with rare melodic strength, a visionary arranger creating innovative jazz orchestrations of contemporary popular music and other genres, and an ambitious producer celebrated for his numerous imaginative projects and compelling line-ups. 

The depth of Doky’s discography is astonishing, with 45 albums released since 1986, winning numerous awards, accolades, gold discs, a.o. in both Europe, North America and Asia. Although he mostly performs his own original compositions (commissioned by UNESCO a.o.), the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark has hosted his innovative “Jazz/Takes” for the past four years – a highly successful concert series that aims to expand the classic jazz standard repertoire. 

Doky’s music reflects an equal blend of Danish and American influences. Growing up in Copenhagen at a time heavily marked by the presence of a record number of American ex-patriate jazz greats (Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, etc.) his American influence started early on and continued when he moved to the USA in 1981. His Danish/Scandinavian influences remained omnipresent all along though - rendering him distinctly different from his American counterparts. His music embodies a unique blend between Nordic lyricism and romanticism - and American power and determination. His more recent recordings have explored and celebrated this dualism in greater depth and turned the synthesis of Danish and American cultures into a fully integrated symbiosis.

One of Doky’s contributions to modern jazz history is a renewal of the jazz standard repertoire, which consisted mainly of pop songs from the 1930s and 40s reworked by jazz musicians of that time, to offer radically different perspectives on widely popular songs. Ultimately everyone forgot the original versions and these songs eventually became permanently identified as the classic repertoire of jazz. Doky has rebooted this past tradition by experimenting extensively with modern jazz interpretations of contemporary pop songs - and arguably more so than any other jazz artist since the original jazz standards were conceived more than 8 decades ago. His “modern standards'' as he likes to call them, include songs from a seemingly unlimited spectrum of contemporary popular music genres.

In spite of having developed a style entirely his own, Doky has close links to the aforementioned piano icons: The former members of the now retired Keith Jarrett’s trio, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette have worked often with Doky as well. And when Oscar Peterson died in 2007 he left a collection of unrecorded original compositions that his estate subsequently had Doky record for an album that Warner Music produced in only one single copy which has remained in the vaults of Sotheby's in London since 2015, awaiting a future auction. 

Sir Niels Lan Doky performs mostly either as solo pianist or with his trio, and occasionally as guest soloist with other ensembles. His trio concerts are generally exclusively devoted to performances of his own original compositions. His solo piano concerts feature solo piano improvisations as well as original compositions. He is also a part of the Modern Standards Supergroup (alongside Darryl Jones, Harvey Mason and Bill Evans) whose mission is to renew and update the jazz standard repertoire.  His most recent tour schedules cover cities such as New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Milan, Rome, Vienna, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Madrid, Barcelona, Zagreb, Budapest, Tbilisi, Luxembourg, and many more.