Eva Kruse
Videos
About
Eva Kruse was born the 16th of October 1978 in Hamburg/ Germany. 1998-2003 she studied acoustic bass and improvisation at the university of arts “UdK” in Berlin with teachers Sigi Busch, Jerry Granelli and David Friedman. She also went to Sweden to study with bassist and professor Anders Jormin in Göteborg for one term.
1999-01 Eva was a member of the german youth-jazzorchestra “BuJazzO”, where she took classes with pianist John Taylor who inspired her into starting writing music for different bands and projects. 2002 she founded her own band with pianist Michael Wollny and drummer Eric Schaefer and what started as “Eva Kruse Trio” soon became the highly acknowledged trio [em].
With [em] Eva has released five albums on ACT Records, toured worldwide over the last ten years and has won two grammy´s in Germany as “best national ensemble”. Since 2012 the band is called “Michael Wollny´s [em]”. Other projects she has worked with include the bands Firomanum, Arne Jansen Trio and the Berlin-based groovecollective SOAP. Eva Kruse is a well-known guest at the JazzBaltica Festival in Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany), where she has played the session-opener-act for a few years as well as europe-wide broadcasted concerts with [em], Firomanum, SOAP, saxophonist Bunky Green and the JazzBaltica Ensemble. At JazzBaltica she even got to know swedish trombonist Nils Landgren with whom she is now frequently touring and recording CDs with different constellations such as Nils Landgren Christmas With My Friends, the Ensemble New Eyes On Baroque feat. Jeanette Köhn and the Swedish Radiochoir a.o.
2012 Eva Kruse founded her own new project “In Water” with oboist Tjadina Würdinger, saxophonist Uwe Steinmetz, pianist Bugge Wesseltoft and drummer Christian Jormin. The first CD from “In Water” was released in September 2014 on Redhorn Records / Naxos. Release tour 2014/15 with Carsten Daerr on piano. For “In Water” Eva received a “Jazz Echo” in Germany as bass player of the year.
2016 Eva Kruse recorded and released her second album “On the Mo” on Redhorn Records/Naxos and continues touring with her quintet now called Eva Kruse “On the Mo”.
Since then Eva Kruse and her quintet has played loads of festivals (Elbjazz, Jazz Baltica, Basel Jazzfest, BMW-Jazz-Award etc.) and all the major german and swedish jazzclubs in front of spellbound audiences. Kruse also tours regularly with Nils Landgren in several different ensembles, as well as the Petter Bergander Trio, to name a few.
“New Legend” (Prophone Records), Kruse’s latest record, was released in 2020. M. Heinzelmann described in NDR´s Jazz-Album of the week that: “The Oboe is very rarely heard in jazz: Its pure sound opens up the sonic landscape and together with the saxophone it takes the listener on a journey into unknown territories”. Eva Kruse plays to her strengths, the poetry, the grooves and the freedom, and together with her band, they explore across boundaries.
Press
“…a beautifully nuanced album in which the strength of Kruse’s compositions is matched by the sensitivity of the soloists; it shows a very distinctive group maturing nicely”
– Jazzjournal, UK
“On New Legend, Eva Kruse and her group have refined not only their interplay, but also the stylistic dynamics. This is music with depth and a light hand, strongly rooted in the combination of composition and improvisation.”
– Johannes Cornell, Dagens Nyheter, SE
“Eva Kruse is the bass player who composes the most intimate and beautiful melodies that she arranges for her ensemble. [..] She knows how to let the whole be bigger than the sum of all parts. I can’t get enough.”
– Mats Palmquist, Lira, SE