It’s always a great pleasure to hear the music of major American jazz stars, and Norway’s Kongsberg Jazz Festival certainly featured a strong contingent, including guitarist John Scofield, organist John Medeski,,drummer Joey Baron and trumpeter Dave Douglas.
There was a good line-up of brilliant British musicians in collaborations with Norwegian players, too, among them guitarist Rob Luft, keyboards player Dan Nicholls, pianist Pat Thomas, drummer Mark Sanders – and the great saxophonist John Surman.
But I’d like to concentrate on the creativity of some truly marvellous Norwegian performers, many of them well-established and others deserving to be better known to the wider jazz audience.
Kongsberg is a lovely town, southwest of Oslo, on the banks of the wildly-flowing River Numedalslågen,and originally a centre for silver mining. That industry no longer exists, but high-tech electronics businesses are thriving, I was told.
The festival opened with a colourful parade of children and youth bands over a river bridge decked with food stalls as the “jazz village” and on through the town.
Karin Krog and John Surman in Kongsberg Church.
Copyright John Watson/jazzcamera.co.uk
There’s an excellent reason to start my reviews of the concerts with a well-established Norwegian star, singer Karin Krog, for she was featured in the first jazz festival held in Kongsberg in 1961. Her return last week, for a performance in the beautiful Kongsberg Church, naturally featured her husband John Surman, on soprano sax, with Staffan William-Olsson on guitar and Terje Gewelt on double bass. It was lovely to see Karin and John still having a marvellous time together with music, in this perfect setting.
Their programme of mainly jazz standards was often moving, and also great fun, with original songs including “Who Knows?”and Surman’s own “Sweet Talker”, plus Blossom Dearie’s witty “I’m Shadowing You”,
On a panoramic scale, drummer Gard Nilssen led his vast Supersonic Orchestra in the main Music Theatre, and what an extraordinary explosion of sound they create – powered by two other drummers as well as Nilssen, three bass players (including Petter Eldh) and a semi-circle of saxophonists, trumpeters and trombonists. Mixing free improvising with immensely powerful structured arrangements – massive blocks of sound – there was enough space for fiery solos, including from the brilliant Polish altoist Maciej Obara.
The festival had opened on the same stage with the band Inazuma, featuring Norwegian jazz master Nils-Petter Molvær on trumpet/electronics, with keyboard players Ståle Storlokken and Anja Lauvdal, bass player Ole Morten Vågan, and the great drummer Thomas Strønen.
This was, for me, one of the most satisfying performances in the festival, imaginative and packed with vast layers of musical colour.
Marius Neset. Photo copyright John Watson/jazzcamera.co.uk
Fine as that was, any performance by saxophonist Marius Neset is quite likely to astonish, and his concert at the intimate club Energimølla with bassist Mats Eilertsen, pianist Eyolf Dale and drummer Audun Kleive was an endless display of musical fireworks, starting with Marius’s characteristic “interval leaps” between very low and very high notes at great speed on solo tenor. Then followed a masterclass in group intensity, climaxing with a wildly spinning uptempo piece in the style of a Norwegian folk dance – my guess would be the dance style reinlender – with Marius firing the pace on soprano sax. Stupendous.
Fellow Norwegian tenor saxophonist Håkon Kornstad featured in two fine concerts, one with pianist Pat Thomas in a tribute to Duke Ellington in the intimate club Argos. There were good moments, but even more stimulating was Kornstad’s appearance with violinist and singer Tuva Halse in the studio theatre Sølvsalen. This was an exceptionally satisfying concept, mixing free improvising and structured songs with baroque works by Purcell, Telemann and Vivaldi – and on the latter selection, Kornstad also demonstrated what a rich operatic tenor voice he has, expertly singing an aria with great feeling.
Y-Otis: Dan Nicholls Otis Sandsjö / tenor, Petter Heldh, bass and bass synth, Jamie Peet, drums.
Photo copyright John Watson/jazzcamera.co.uk
Keyboards player Dan Nicholls created marvellous layers of sound with the band Y-Otis, led by saxophonist.Otis Sandsjö and also featuring Petter Eldh on bass guitar and bass synth, and James Peet, drums. The style embraced electronic deep beats, fine tenor improvising – with an unusually dry and plaintive tone – and strongly unified layered themes.
In the same club, bassist and singer Ellen Andrea Wang gave a quite delightful set with Rob Luft and Swedish drummer Jon Fält. There wasmore melodic pleasure, too, from singer and (unusually) euphonium player Reidun Ottersen in the club Argus – really delightful, pure singing with a strong folk influence from this young lady, who is from Kongsberg. Beautiful playing, too, from flautist Henriette Eilertsen in a special celebration of her work titled “Særingfest”, and featuring her smooth playing with a variety of groups, one of which featured Mark Sanders.
And so to the American visitors. I’ve enjoyed the playing of trumpeter Dave Douglas many times, though sometimes with reservations, but he was in good form in the club Energimølla with bass player Nick Dunston, pianist Marta Warelis, and the tremendously musical drummer Joey Baron.
I had hoped to see at least some of John Scofield’s set, but it overlapped with another performance and was a few minutes late starting.
Dedicated jazz fans know that festivals present the occasional veteran pop star to boost the takings, and Kongsberg was no exception, with the Jamaican-born singer Grace Jones on the open stage Kvarten. She had aimed for a visual spectacular, trying to look menacing wearing a gold-coloured skull mask while sitting on a huge golden throne (which I later learned had been borrowed from the props department of a popular Norwegian TV quiz show). A skull mask? On dear, Grace, it takes more than that to scare the Vikings.
The festival ended on a much happier note back in the club Energimølla, with the vibrant, soulful West African singing of the group Les Amazones d’Afrique, a danceable delight with singers Assitan Mamani Keita, Ahouefa Fafa Ruffino and Alvie Bitemo.
Congratulations to Kongsberg festival director Ragnhild Menes and her team on the excellent programming, and to press hosts Luna Lykken Wiik and Hans Jacob Normann for their great help with my coverage in Kongsberg.
John Watson stayed in Kongsberg as a guest of the festival.