Simon Spang-Hanssen is a Danish jazz saxophonist. He has played saxophone since 1970 and became a member of John Tchicai’s Strange Brothers in 1976. In 1978, he founded his first quartet, Spacetrain, with Ben Besiakov, Jesper Lundgaard, and Alex Riel, and received the Ben Webster Prize the same year. During the following years, he collaborated with musicians including Ole Rømer, Jan Kaspersen, Peter Danstrup, Pierre Dørge, Doug Raney, Marilyn Mazur, and others, and in 1983 joined Brazilian drummer Nenê’s band, touring Denmark and France. In 1985, he moved to Paris, where he performed with his own groups and with musicians such as Andy Emler and Édouard Ferlet, and also appeared with the Orchestre National de Jazz (1991–1994). He founded the quintet Maneklar in 1995 before returning to Copenhagen in 1998, where he formed several projects including Central Earth, the Simon Spang-Hanssen Quartet, Flower Machine, and the Afro-Jazz quartet Eer Witness.
