Scandinavian Wood

The musical career of Niels-Henning Østed Pedersen
in the light of his discography

By Jørgen Mathiasen

The Danish bass player Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was for a period the most recorded European jazz bass player, and became known to the international jazz audience in the 1970s not least through his cooperation with Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Kenny Drew and Oscar Peterson. In the 1980s he recorded Palle Mikkelborg’s Aura with Miles Davis as a soloist, but NHØP had started his career as a member of the rhythm group of jazz club Montmartre in Copenhagen already in the 1960s. He died in 2005 only 58 years of age.

The book (352 pages in Danish) has an account of his career and a discography focussing on his jazz recordings at more than 500 sessions. The text also has comments to recordings of NHØP, not least the recording he made as leader or co-leader.

The name and its spelling
Despite the proposal that he should change his name to Joe Peterson, NHØP kept his Danish name, and to foreigners there are a couple of difficulties connected to it. It contains the Nordic letter Ø (ASCII 157) and it is long and therefore often abbreviated NHØP. Internationally the Ø is usually replaced with O, which gives the abbreviation NHOP.
Also in international reference books the name is often written Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen, hence alphabetized under O, but Pedersen really is his last family name. His first name, Niels-Henning, is a double name just like Jean-Luc or Karl-Heinz.

The first family name, Ørsted, is sometimes confused with the village where NHØP was brought up. The name of the village is Osted and it is not related to his family name.

"I'm not a member of any jazz movement"
NHØP (1996)