Jon Larsen Receives the Norwegian Buddy Award 2007

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Guitar player and composer Jon Larsen today is awarded the BUDDY PRIZE 2007. This is the highest ranking prize in Norwegian music. Jon Larsen is famous for his records and world wide tours with the quartet Hot Club de Norvge since the 70-ies. His new CD - Strange News From Mars (recorded together with Frank Zappa's old band) is at the moment the best selling jazz CD in Norway. Norwegian guitarist, composer, painter and surrealist Jon Larsen has recorded a concept album with some of the musicians from Frank Zappa's famed band The Mothers of Invention. Strange news for Mars tells the story of the spacecraft Big Ear III's voyage to the red planet.

Underway captain Zurcon and his crew are about to solve three of the greatest mysteries to mankind. Only hearing the record itself will reveal what these are, but needless to say, extra terrestrial intelligence is a key here. The album is written, arranged and produced by Jon Larsen in its entirety. It was recorded in Los Angeles in March with Tommy Mars, Bruce Fowler, Jimmy Carl Black and Arthur Barrow. Strange News also features musical stunts from Norwegian musical dignitaries such as Knut Reiersrud, (guitar/harmonica), Rob Waring (marimba), Ole Morten Vgan (bass), and Hkon Mjset Johansen (drums). Zappa's old musicians were so taken by the project and the sessions that they immediately requested a sophomore. And now the plan as to make it a trilogy! Tours are already in the planning. What joyous luck then that Zappa's old crew, the individual members of which Larsen always so admired, should approach him with a desire to play on his Mars concept. -For this is what happened when Larsen went over to LA to start the sessions; they heard of the project and wanted to play.

Jon Larsen is best known perhaps from his legendary Django-ensemble Hot Club de Norge, which he founded way back in 1979. The band has had an astonishing success in Norway and worldwide, releasing 25 albums and collaborating, across genres, with elite musicians and all kinds of ensembles and orchestras. Larsen is a guitarist, composer and painter. Painting was his first vocation, and from studying Dali and surrealism in the late 70s he eventually started infusing much of that spirit into music, especially when he took up composing in the nineties.

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