Pianist Gareth Williams writes a personal reflection on the great Swedish bassist Palle Danielsson who has died at the age of 77.

Palle Danielsson has died, and with him, one of the most instantly identifiable bass sounds of all time. For many of us, his greatest work was with the Keith Jarrett band, for a brief period in the mid 1970s. Several outstanding albums were the result, which also established Jan Garbarek as a star. In the engine room were Palle and Jon Christensen. Drummers and bass players hunt in pairs; Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motion. And Danielsson with Christensen. Adventurous, gifted and unencumbered by the weight of tradition, they didn’t just supply the basis for Jarrett’s mesmerising improvisation, they were the very source of the creative spring.

My Song, Personal Mountains and so on. Wonderful albums all. But (and Django Bates wrote an emotive Facebook piece on this subject recently) the apogee moment of Palle Danielsson brilliance lies in ‘Blossom’, a tender, meandering piece of group improvisation (from Belonging) in which Palle is the fulcrum. If LaFaro had lived, he might have been capable of this level of interplay but not with Palle’s unique melding of bombast and melancholy, readiness to jump in, without deference but, instinctively, perfect. There are transient, evanescent moments of subtle beauty and it was this track that made Palle the favourite bass player of my formative years.

I first met him in Denmark, at a festival. He looked like Palle Danielsson, but smaller. He had a wild look, somewhere between Oliver Reed and Benny from Abba. He was at the bar with his famous bass, the instrument of that sound. He was happy to demonstrate and talk about the Jarrett days. I think he thought of them as halcyon. And there’s the rub; he didn’t get the plaudits of Charlie Haden or others. Jarrett moved on and eschewed all contact with Danielsson and Christensen, once even refusing to say hello to them after a gig they’d attended. I am astounded that many younger players and students have never heard of him. Perhaps, this is partly due to listening to unlabelled tracks online rather than having sleeve notes to hand. Perhaps he wasn’t a galvaniser or composer or project builder.

By the time I got to work with him (*) he was semi-retired and not at the peak of his powers. He used a borrowed bass. BUT, he made a hell of a sound on that bass and his ears were still phenomenal. There were moments of improvised interplay that simply could not have happened with any other player, and I will treasure those recordings. I hope we see his like again.

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(*) Gareth Williams recorded “Short Stories” with Palle Danielsson (and Chris Laurence) and Martin France in 2019

Nils Paul “Palle” Danielsson. Born Stockholm, 15 October 1946. Died Åkers styckebruk, 18 May 2024

LINKS: Steve Lake’s tribute to Palle Danielsson on the ECM Records website
Biographical facts / albums – in Swedish – from Wivatt
Alyn Shipton’s obituary
Peter Vacher’s LJN review of Short Stories / Sebastian Scotney’s review for The Arts Desk