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On November 12th 2020, Danish jazz was celebrated with an over-the-top live show filled with music, awards, and festive hosting at Bremen Theater in Copenhagen. This year's host Jeanett Albeck guided the audience through a night of musical performances and celebration as eight awards and two scholarships were awarded to the very best musicians and orchestras from the recent jazz year.
Heavyweights and debutants among the winners
The 13-person Maluba Orchestra, led by heavyweights Marilyn Mazur, Fredrik Lundin, and Kasper Bai, won the main prize Jazz Album of the Year, which was described by the jury as an album with "great compositional ambitions and a comprehensive take on jazz". Vocal Jazz Album of the Year was awarded to Sinne Eeg & the Danish Radio Big Band, who were praised for a top-professional performance, where the music "flows smoothly, seamlessly" through the album We've Just Begun.
The award for New Name of the Year went to the young saxophonist Nikola Bankov, who with the album Bright Future was predicted a bright future. The album was called an inexhaustible, all-consuming force that immediately makes both brain and heart surrender. In the newly category, Experiment of the Year, Maria Faust Sacrum Facere was awarded for the genre-breaking album ORGAN. The album was praised by the jury for its dramatic and melancholy roar of collective sound and for containing "jazz's inherent urge to reach out and strike out".
The prestigious title as Jazz Composer of the Year went to drummer and composer Laurits Hyllested for debutpladen, Darling River, where the compositions and the wide-ranging improvisations intertwine in unexpected and unforced ways.
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