Bugge & Friends by Bugge Wesseltoft

Bugge Wesseltoft, leader of Bugge ‘n Friends, about his latest project:

I'm so proud of being able to present this fantastic line up of Friends and Heroes I have been so fortunate to hear and work with these past 10 years! The Bugge & Friends Project is all about presenting a community of music and international artists, all mixing jazz and electronic music together, with a deep mutual respect and a fascination for each other's worlds.

Going to clubs and listening to great DJs was the factor that really started my fascination for club music. I found an audience worshipping music through dancing and movement instead of clapping after a good solo, but is just as dedicated and knowledgeable about this type of music as the jazz audience that I was used to was about theirs. The way those amazingly skilled DJs worked and created an incredible dynamic energy with records blew me away totally. Their way of thinking with music reminded me of late 60s Miles, Coltrane, Sun Ra stuff. Long tracks building great dynamic waves. By talking to the DJs I found a deeply rooted openness, curiosity and understanding for music, and we totally met in a common interest for music, from Jazz to experimental stuff.

Hearing Joaquin Joe Claussell live for the first time at Saturos Beyond Festival in Sapporo was all about that. What a fantastic DJ! Treating records like a percussion instrument the crowd went mad - to put it mildly! So did I!

The fortune of being a musician carries me around the world and so I met Swedish/Turkish/American Saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin for the first time in one of the greatest cities in the world, Istanbul. The two of us also had a similar development, both of us running a label and a band (him Nublu Records and Nublu Orchestra, myself Jazzland Recordings and New Conception of Jazz), focused on mixing club and jazz music. In addition, Ilhan also ran the Nublu Club, one of the coolest and fast upcoming in New York.