Jon Balke
Jon Georg Balke (born 7 June 1955) is a Norwegian jazz pianist who leads the Magnetic North Orchestra. He is the younger brother of saxophonist Erik Balke. Career. Balke started playing classical piano but switched to blues at 12, though he performs within several genres. At the age of 18 he joined Arild Andersen's quartet. By the mid-1980s he worked on his own and would become one of Norway's leading jazz composers. He was active in the groups of Radka Toneff and in the Afrofusion group E'olén before joining Oslo 13 and Masqualero in the early  1980s. From 1989 he focused on his own projects, such as JøKleBa (with Audun Kleive and Per Jørgensen) and the Magnetic North Orchestra for which he composed the commissioned work "Il Cenoneat" to Vossajazz 1992. Balke formed the percussion group Batagraf in 2002, and created the concept work "Siwan" with singer Amina Alaoui in 2007. He is also the creator of a series of multimedia concerts at Vossajazz festival, labeled "Ekstremjazz". The concerts involve various practitioners of extreme sports, such as parachuting, paragliding, hanggliding, and BMX biking. In 2012 he was artist in residence at Moldejazz. In 2016 he launched  the solo piano concept Warp the use of live electronics accompanying the grand piano in live performances. Discography. As leader. An asterisk (*) indicates year of release. As co-leader. With Jøkleba With Batagraf As sideman. With Radka Toneff With Masqualero With Oslo 13 With others