Photo by Petra Cvelbar
Mats Gustafsson – tenor and baritone saxophone
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – bass
Paal Nilssen-Love – drums
Mixing jazz with noise, avant-rock and punk, the music of The Thing has been described as ‘garage-freejazz’ and ‘improv-punk’.
The band was established in 1999 when the three musicians met to play their interpretation of Don Cherry tunes. Since then The Thing has grown into one of the most successful and hardest working free jazz trio’s around, traveling all over the world. They have performed with guests like Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O’Rourke, Thurston Moore, Peter Evans and Neneh Cherry.
One of the most appealing facets of The Thing is the visceral experience of seeing them play live. Huddled closely on stage, wearing matching Ruby’s BBQ of Austin t-shirts, dripping with sweat and manhandling their instruments, the trio is one of the modern wonders of avant-garde jazz (Andrey Henkin, AAJ)
Websites
The Thing Records
The Thing on Bandcamp – listen to a complete track of each album.
Mats Gustafsson
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten
Paal Nilssen-Love
Bio of The Thing | Press about The Thing | Music of the Thing | Video of The Thing | Photo’s of The Thing | Concerts of The Thing