Jakob Bro (b. 1978) is a composer and guitarist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has recorded more than 25 albums for ECM Records and Loveland Music with artists such as Paul Motian, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Charles Lloyd, Joe Lovano, Kenny Wheeler, Paul Bley, Wadada Leo Smith, Palle Mikkelborg, Marilyn Mazur, Jon Christensen, Jason Moran and many others.
His music and various ensembles are depicted in the award-winning film “Music for Black Pigeons” (directed by Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed), which premiered at the 79th Venice Biennale and has been featured at film festivals around the world.
Since the turn of 2025 he has been curating the Loveland Music label, where he is currently collaborating with Midori Takada, Joe Lovano, Brian Blade, Charles Lloyd, Larry Grenadier, Jorge Rossy, Joey Baron, Thomas Morgan, Skúli Sverrisson, Arve Henriksen, Jesper Zeuthen, Mark Turner, Marcus Gilmore, JACK Quartet, Brussels Philharmonic and visual artist Tal R. His annual stint as a leader at New York’s The Village Vanguard began in 2020, and he also frequently performs with artists from Japan.
Jakob Bro is a former member of Paul Motian & The Electric Bebop Band (Garden of Eden, ECM – 2006) and of Tomasz Stanko’s Dark Eyes Quintet (Dark Eyes, ECM – 2009).
His latest ECM-album is “Taking Turns” with a star-studded cast featuring Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Andrew Cyrille, Jason Moran, and Thomas Morgan. His yearly output with ECM Records also includes “Strands”, a live recording from 2023 with Danish jazz masters Palle Mikkelborg and Marilyn Mazur, the deeply felt homage “Once Around the Room: A Tribute to Paul Motian” (2022) co-lead by Joe Lovano and other highly acclaimed albums such as “Uma Elmo” (2021) with Arve Henriksen and Jorge Rossy; “Returnings” (2018) with Palle Mikkelborg, Thomas Morgan and Jon Christensen; and three trio albums “Bay of Rainbows” (2018), “Streams” (2017) and “Gefion” (2016) – produced by Manfred Eicher.
Jakob Bro has won the DownBeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star Guitarist category and received numerous honors including the Carl Prize, Danish Music Award, the Danish Arts Foundation Award and a Nordic Council Music Prize nomination for the trilogy: “Balladeering” (2009), “Time” (2011) & “December Song” (2013).
“Jakob Bro creates magical music, impossible to categorize or capture. His songs are best described as jewels revolving in mid-air, reflecting and refracting light,” writes Downbeat. “Based on an idea of the slow, simple melody and a nearly Buddhist ideal of relinquishing the ego, Jakob Bro has lifted jazz into a new future,” Danish newspaper Politiken adds. It is Bro’s conviction that “the music has to breathe. It’s important that a kind of organic conversation is taking place.”
His worldwide touring activities extend to Japan, China, South Korea, Greenland, Iceland, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, South Africa, Europe and the United States including venues and festivals such as Big Ears Festival, NYC Winter Jazz, World Expo Osaka, Tessenkai Noh Theatre Tokyo, Pierre Boulez Saal, and Roskilde Festival.