Stefan Pasborg Trio feat. Fredrik Lundin & Carsten Dahl - Dear Alex

Stefan Pasborg - "This album and the words come straight from the heart, with eternal love and respect.

On June 9, 2024, drummer Alex Riel—one of the greatest personalities in Danish music history—passed away. For seven decades, he helped shape Danish and European music across several genres.

As a drummer, he was a unique musician with a playful focus and rare musical energy. He radiated an undeniable, contagious joy during his time in this world and approached the drums and music in general with a delightful sincerity and expressiveness that spread to everyone around him.

As fate would have it, Alex became my Godfather, and with him came music and the keys to a wondrous universe of drums, cymbals, gongs, and endless percussion sounds. As my Godfather and friend, he has always been in my life with love, inspiration, joy, humor, and (of course) music! For 50 years, he and I shared life and music, playing drum duets privately in living rooms and professionally on stages several times a year. Our last duo session would be in May 2024—3 weeks before he passed away.

Alex was and will always be my mentor, my first and greatest drumming hero, and my best friend. All the praise in the world still wouldn’t be enough for him. Both on the drums and offstage, Alex was the kind of guy you only meet once in a lifetime (if you're lucky!).

A few months ago, a list of some of Alex’s favorite songs in his handwriting found its way to me. I invited my trio, with Carsten and Fredrik, into the studio to record versions of some of those songs in our own way. We wanted to capture the essence of our heartfelt, spontaneous approach. The album ended up being almost entirely made up of first takes, and everything was recorded in one day.

The result is this album !"