Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Bengt Berger / Jonas Knutsson / Christian Spering / Max ...

5

Bengt Berger / Jonas Knutsson / Christian Spering / Max Schultz: Blue Blue

By

View read count
Bengt Berger / Jonas Knutsson / Christian Spering / Max Schultz: Blue Blue
The Swedish trio of drummer Bengt Berger, saxophonist Jonas Knutsson and bassist Christian Spering has been working for 19 years, often hosting different musicians-friends. This versatile trio aesthetics blended natural elements of modern jazz with East-Asian and West-African rhythms and Swedish folk music. The trio was voted as the Swedish jazz group of the year more than ten times, but only recently decided to expand its format to a quartet, adding jazz guitarist Max Schultz, a favorite guest musician of the trio.

The seventh album of the trio-turned-quartet feature twelve compositions, five of them penned by Schultz and the others by the three remaining musicians. The atmosphere on all 12 songs is relaxed, characterized by an emphatic, nuanced interplay. Schultz fits organically into this kind of supportive interplay, solidifying the group highly melodic vein. But he is also a very dominant musician who shifts the quartet musical focus into a much more jazz-structured pieces.

The quartet limits its borders-binding spirit—literally—to the minimum and opts now for more polished, almost mainstream jazz pieces. This shift is apparent on Schultz most open composition, "Kim Corner," a piece that at first adopts a kind of Ornette Coleman open rhythmic interplay, but eventually is developed as a light, breezy piece with a Pat Metheny-like solo. Only Spering's "Tar Shehnai," on which he bows beautifully the Indian bowed instrument by this name, regains the genre-blind spirit and departs from the common jazz sensibility of most of the pieces.

Still, the quartet sound in its new incarnation is a tight, strong group, suggesting a set of new playful melodies.

Track Listing

Frankly; Beyond; My Sequence; Kim's Corner; Old and New Blues; Tar Shehnai; Maximum; Babylon; Blue Blue; Motsols; La Rana Cansada; Max Gura.

Personnel

Bengt Berger
percussion

Bengt Berger: drums; Jonas Knutsson: saxophones; Christian Spering: bass, tar shehnai; Max Schultz: electric, nylon and steel string guitars, mandolin.

Album information

Title: Blue Blue | Year Released: 2015 | Record Label: Country & Eastern

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

Near

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.