Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, 58; Jazz Bassist of Agile Invention
Jon Thurber
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, the Danish bassist whose virtuosity and flawless sense of time made him a favorite accompanist for many of the leading names in jazz, most notably pianist Oscar Peterson, has died.
/apple-touch-icon.png
Los Angeles Times
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, the Danish bassist whose virtuosity and flawless sense of time made him a favorite accompanist for many of the leading names in jazz, most notably pianist Oscar Peterson, has died. He was 58.

Orsted Pedersen, known as NHOP for his lengthy name, died Tuesday at his home in Ishoj, south of Copenhagen, his manager told Danish media. The cause of death was not announced.

Born in Osted, Denmark, Orsted Pedersen learned piano as a child but switched to double bass at an early age. By his mid-teens he was astonishingly proficient and was a fixture in the house band at Copenhagen’s legendary Montmartre jazz club. While still a teenager, he was offered an opportunity to come to the United States to play in Count Basie’s band but was unable to get a work permit.

Through the 1960s, word of his prowess spread and he became a sought-after sideman for American jazzmen playing in Scandinavia. Before he was 20, he toured Europe with Bill Evans and recorded with Bud Powell. He would later play with Chet Baker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. In the late 1960s, he started a collaboration with saxophonist Dexter Gordon that lasted into the mid-1970s.

But his international reputation soared in 1973 when Cold War politics gave him an opportunity to play with Peterson. As the pianist recalled in his 2002 autobiography, “A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson,” his group, which then included Czech exile George Mraz on bass, was on tour in Europe when Mraz realized that he could not play an upcoming date behind the Iron Curtain without running into problems with communist authorities.

Mraz’s decision to bow out forced Peterson to find a new bassist in a hurry. Bassist Ray Brown, a former member of Peterson’s group, suggested Orsted Pedersen, telling the pianist: “He’s the only one that I know who might keep up with you.”

Orsted Pedersen joined the group in 1973 and played with Peterson through much of the 1970s and ‘80s. When Peterson resumed playing in the late 1990s after suffering a serious stroke, Orsted Pedersen was with him, offering the musical support needed to make his return a success.

“Niels Pedersen is the type of player whose talents on his instrument are such that he is almost unaware of what he does,” Peterson wrote in his autobiography. “His virtuosity on the bass surpasses anyone else that I have known. His melodic sense is impeccable, his choice of harmonic sequences is a pure delight to play with, and his time is flawless.... He is now arguably the most inventive bassist in jazz.”

In the 1970s, Orsted Pedersen also recorded with the great Catalonian pianist Tete Montoliu and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, and in the 1980s he recorded with guitarist Philip Catherine, pianist Kenny Drew and guitarist Joe Pass.

While Orsted Pedersen performed on hundreds of albums, he recorded relatively few as a group leader. On one of his more recent albums, “Friends Forever,” a 1997 release on Milestone records, his playing earned praise from Times critic Don Heckman, who noted that the recording “allows plenty of opportunities for Orsted Pedersen to stretch out with his solos. And he makes the most of them.”

“Less obvious than his soloing,” Heckman wrote, “but in some respects even more impressive, are his accompaniments. Over and over, his choice of notes enriches the harmonies of his songs, and the placement of his lines -- always done with meticulous precision -- brings an almost Baroque-like contrapuntal quality to the music. Subtle, understated but masterful, it is the work of a jazzman whose talent is unbounded.”

Orsted Pedersen is survived by his wife, Solveig, and three children.