| O.J.'s Trumpet Page | Artists and personalities |
Palle Mikkelborg (b. 1941) started playing trumpet in 1956 and became a professional musician in 1960. He consider himself an autodidact on trumpet.
At first he was a member of the Danish Radio Jazz Group and the Danish Radio Big Band. As a leader of these bands in the 1970s, he developed his skill as a composer and arranger.
Throughout the 1980's Mikkelborg toured Europe and Japan and made recordings with Gil Evans Big Band, George Russel Big Band, Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Gary Peacock, Dinu Saluzzi and others. He was also a member of the successful Danish trio Heart to Heart with Kenneth Knudsen and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.
The past ten years, he has led his own group with himself and his wife, the Welsh harpist Helen Davies.
George Russell once said that he liked "the Scandinavian sound" of Palle Mikkelborg. Russel would often ask him to open a concert alone to create a musical landscape that only Palle could do. Russel would then add the rhythm and the whole orchestra would slowly come in. Mikkelborgs sensitivity and calm made it possible for him to send an "echo or a sound out into the world" and wait until it came back. This sensitivity, Russel had not found in musicians from the US.
Palle Mikkelborg was awarded with The
Nordic Council's Music Prize for 2001. He received the prize 2nd of
April 2001 in Oslo.