Marína Ósk - EPK
““One Evening in July” is an accomplished and breathtaking jazz album.
Marína Ósk is a pearl on the Icelandic jazz scene.”
“One Evening in July”
About Marína Ósk
Jazz has been a butterflies-in-stomach-starter for Icelandic jazz vocalist and composer Marína Ósk since she was a little girl but it wasn’t until her late twenties she discovered how intensely her heart beat for that golden era of jazz music. Marína Ósk has spent the best part of the last 10 years studying jazz in Amsterdam (CvA, class of 2017) and Stockholm (KMH, class of 2021), during which time she dug deep into the jazz tradition, the jazz language and the “American Songbook” - a musical place where she found her home as an artist and a composer.
Marína Ósk has toured the Nordic countries, played at the Reykjavík Jazz festival, Oslo Jazz Festival, the Nordic Jazz Comets showcase, as well as playing various concerts all over Europe.
Marína Ósk (Artwork: Rebecca Santo)
“Marína doesn’t need much. Only her voice, which she uses like an instrument herself. Her quartet accompanies her like good old friends. Every now and then one of them gives his commentary, but it all remains very harmonious and Marína the undisputed center. ”
“One Evening in July” - Latest release
Following her debut album “Athvarf” which landed her two nominations for the Icelandic Music Awards in 2020, Marína Ósk released her second LP in August 2022, “One Evening in July” on Swedish record label TengTones - for which she won the Icelandic Music Awards in 2023 for Jazz Composition of the year, after receiving a total of four nominations. The album showcases Marína Ósk’s sincere love for the jazz music of the 50’s and the 60’s, as her compositions reveal how intertwined her musical mind is with the melodies and harmonic soundscape of the jazz standards in the “American Songbook”.
The heart of the album “One Evening in July” pumps vintage jazz-vibes through melodies, harmonic layers and the performance of Marína’s quartet, but each band member has the upmost respect and passion for the role models of jazz players past which they’ve all studied whole-heartedly.
“In The Moon And The Sky she is in no way inferior to the great Melody Gardot. A jazz ballad at its best, which brings out the nuances of her mood and shows the caliber of the lady is carved. ”
“It is a bit like a jazz era has come back, although in a slightly different way. We will probably hear more from Marína Ósk and she has started to write “A Great Icelandic Songbook”.”
Marína Ósk Kvartett performing at Jazzfjelag Suðurnesjabæjar, Iceland. in August 2022.
The band
The members of the band, Marína Ósk Kvartett, are all great friends and all share a deep passion for the warm and embracing jazz tradition. Marína got to know the band members during her master studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.
Icelandic pianist, composer and vocalist, Anna Gréta Sigurðardóttir, is one of the most exciting artists in Scandinavia. She holds numerous awards for her contribution to the Swedish jazz scene, including the Monica Zetterlund grant and Jazz Club Fasching Society Award. She released her debut, “Nightjar in the Northern Sky” on Act Music in 2021, for which she reveived two awards at the Icelandic Music Awards in 2022. She is currently based in Stockholm where she is one of the pillars of the Sedish jazz scene.
Double bass player and composer Johan Tengholm is without a doubt one of the most interesting musicians on the Swedish jazz. At the age of 22, in 2020, he graduated from the Royal Collage of Music in Stockholm and is now a rising star among the many great bass players in Sweden, playing with plenty of the top bands and musicians. He released his debut album, Migration, in November 2021, consisting of only original compositions. Johan is also a co-founder of the Swedish record label, TengTones.
www.johantengholm.bandcamp.com
TengTones’ other founder, Erik Tengholm, has been one of the most active jazz trumpet players in Sweden over the past years. He plays with many of the hottest bands, as well as being a band leader, not only as a trumpet player, but also as composer and arranger. Erik has a wide aesthetic palette, playing all sorts of jazz music, all the way from early New Orleans music, to the modern sounds of today. Erik was recently awarded the Ola Carlsson Scholarship with the motivation: "Erik is a stunningly musical and skillful jazz trumpet player, who with exquisite feeling moves freely between different styles of jazz". Erik's debut album, Stories From the Club, was released in November 2021, featuring the amazing Erik Tengholm Quintet.