Jazz Articles
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Big Band Splash: Volume 5
by Jack Bowers
Although Swedish-born and --based saxophonist Jakob Norgren's orchestra has been making waves for several years, Volume 5 is only the second of its recordings to churn up the waters in this estuary. And churn them it does, even though Norgren's blend of R&B, soul, pop, blues and funk far outweighs the album's minimal jazz content. Norgren's charts, we are told, encompass songs associated with Otis Redding, Beyonce, Etta James, O.V. Wright, Otis Rush and B.B. King, among ...
Continue ReadingJakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding
by Budd Kopman
One look into the eyes of composer/reed man Jakob Norgren tells you that he is an extremely purposeful, self- directed and intense person. His music for his Jazz Orchestra reflects these attributes, making Pathfinding quite an aural ride. Stylistically, this music fits somewhere between Ayn Inserto's story-telling Home Away From Home and John Fedchock's more traditional Like It Is. This is a very tight big band that can swing like crazy ("Serendipity") or blow the roof out (the ...
Continue ReadingJakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding
by Jack Bowers
Although he has been a fixture on the Swedish jazz scene for some years now, Jakob Norgren is more closely associated with soul, blues, funk and R&B than with contemporary big-band jazz. That perception may change with the release of Pathfinding, the debut recording by Norgren's impressive Jazz Orchestra, on which he proves to be a topnotch composer / arranger in a straight-ahead vein. And if the relatively youthful JNJO isn't the most proficient big band Sweden has to offer, ...
Continue ReadingJakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding
by Edward Blanco
Swedish composer and jazz artist Jakob Norgren is a complex individual with a fascinating background of which band leader is only one component of his varied resume. Leading the Swedish-based contemporary Jakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra, the group deliver their debut album on the audacious Pathfinding, where the music is big band, modern with all new original material that swings all over. A research assistant in cognitive neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, Norgren also finds the time to ...
Continue ReadingJakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding
by Chris Mosey
The last word has yet to be spoken on the role of the baritone saxophone in jazz big band writing. Duke Ellington used Harry Carney to great, often magnificent effect. Then, in 1960, Gerry Mulligan took things further with his Concert Jazz Band. At that moment the Beatles and the beat boom that followed sounded the death knell for jazz as popular music. Big bands were no longer economically viable and the few that survived showed little ...
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