Kresten Osgood: Presence in the Room

It is hard to underestimate the influence of drummer Kresten Osgood on Danish jazz. As a co-founder of the prominent ILK Music label and the man behind several festivals and musical events, he has been a vital part of creating a vibrant modern jazz scene and community that has also welcomed visits from the many jazz legends Osgood has played with.

The later years have seen him deliberately slowing down on arranging events, although he has found time to create an acclaimed podcast about the history of Danish jazz. The focus is now primarily on his own projects and that is a good thing since Osgood belongs to a group of musicians where the quality of the music can keep up with a prolific profile. The following records encapsulate the many sides of a drummer that fellow musician and friend, Tomo Jacobson, has called a "legend in the making." The albums all have one thing in common: The ability to create a presence in the room.

Kresten Osgood Quintet
Live at H15 Studio
ILK Music
2024

It goes without saying that a live recording is one of the best ways of creating presence in the room since an audience is there to give immediate response to the music. Osgood has previously documented the Danish quintet he has had for 10 years, but they have not been captured live until now.

Live at H15 Studio is an album culled from recordings of three midnight concerts performed at H15 Studio in The Meatpacking District in Central Copenhagen. The time of the concerts is important. This is not the strict choreography of a planned evening concert, but the wild rowdiness of a night gig. Jazz as one could imagine it was played at the height of the bop era in New York.

In fact, it would not be wrong to characterize the quintet as a modern hard-bop quintet, but it would be limiting since this is a group that can go all way back to the Swing Era to pay homage to the Danish swing lion, Leo Mathisen, whose melodic ballad "Long Shadows" is played in a thoughtful version that features Erik Kimestad's glistering trumpet.

The highlights include an incredibly funky version of trumpeter Kirk Knuffke's "Subway" with saxophonist Mads Egetoft getting all raw and throaty in the style of Pharoah Sanders and two interpretations of Elmo Hope tunes. Especially their version of "Stars of Marrakech" unfolds the many layers of Hope's music.

The joy of the band shines through, as does the enthusiasm of the audience that screams with delight. Throughout, Osgood varies his playing from the subtlest touch on the cymbals to rolling thunder and hard swinging while pianist Jeppe Zeeberg is able to take the music in any direction with his melodic and rhythmic playing. It culminates in a regular piano freakout on the closing track, "Happy Pretty," written by Bert Wilson. It is an intense ending to an album that is in the zone from the beginning.

Sacha Perry / Ben Street / Kresten Osgood
Low Tide
Gotta Let It Out
2024

Low Tide is another example of Osgood's original take on the jazz tradition, but this time with a different compositional focus and format. The geography also shifts from Copenhagen to New York.

At the center of this elegant trio is the wonderful playing of pianist Sacha Perry. The repertoire is primarily taken from the songbook of Thelonious Monk, and this could potentially be a killer because so many people play Monk and one of the best interpreters of Monk is Monk himself. However, Perry finds a new quality in Monk's music; a laidback mildness that seldomly finds place in the hard angular interpretations of the master. "Locomotive" is played as a relaxed pastoral ride instead of transport with a steam train and "'Round Midnight" is so light and fluorescent, it might as well be called "Round Daylight," although it does include some surprising piano attacks like the sudden jab of a boxer dog strolling in the park.

Do not be mistaken: the music does not lack drive, but rather sounds effortlessly relaxed. Osgood plays lightly, but he keeps the rhythmic drive. He lets the sticks do the talking on "Thelonious," adding a few gentle drum rolls. The music grounded by bassist Ben Street and his sophisticated and unpredictable walking style, but the music always seems up in the air. Even when Perry plays the blues, you sense a smile between the keys, and this is genuinely refreshing. Here is an advanced modern jazz trio hip to the potential of happiness. Low Light creates a musical room that is inviting. It is a place you want to stay.

Darius Heid / Wilbert de Joode / Kresten Osgood
With Black Arch
Gotta Let It Out
2024

Although With Black Arch is also a piano trio effort, it is a completely different beast. Like Low Light, it is released on Tomo Jacobson's Gotta Let It Out label and is more in keeping with the label's avant-garde spirit. Osgood can be found here in the company of German pianist Darius Heid and Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode.

The cover sports a painting by Vassily Kandinsky, and his abstract colorful figures are a good analogy to understand and appreciate the music, which is more about form and material than melody. That does not mean that clipped melodic phrases and rhythmic patterns do not show up, but they defy any kind of logical order, just as the nameless titles on the album where composition "No. 6" is followed by composition "No. 4."

The focus here is on the wonder of sound and how sound can form unpredictable shapes. The piano becomes a wonder box of prepared sounds rather than an instrument for melody, and the drums are explored not as purveyor of steady rhythms and grooves, but as vehicle for getting deeper into the shades of a cymbal.

This is the kind of music that sharpens the ability to hear, and it also makes you aware of the details in a more conventional kind of music like Osgood's refreshing take on the hard bop quintet. These groups seem worlds apart, and yet they are tightly connected. Both aspects are necessary to understand Osgood's approach to the art of the drums.

Holmström / Jansson / Osgood + Ström
Easy to Remember
Gotta Let It Out
2024

Osgood has always been good at promoting his heroes. He literally wears his influences on the sleeve, his cap with the name of saxophonist Fred Anderson written on it being one of the finest examples. Another hero is Swedish saxophonist Gilbert Holmstrom. He is less known than Anderson so part of the motivation of getting the album Easy to Remember out was to document Holmström's music.

On Easy to Remember, Holmström can be heard in an acoustic trio with Osgood and bassist Peter Janson. It is a treasure in style of the great acoustic saxophone trios and shows that Holmström understands "the metaphysics of bop," as Osgood has aptly put it. There is lot of deep storytelling when the trio finds new poetry in Cole Porter's standard "Night and Day" or plays Wayne Shorter's sophisticated ballad, "Contemplation."

To show the full scope of Holmström's musicality, the relatively straight reading of the title track is followed by an occasionally fiery free jazz moment on "Hard to Forget" where Jansson is replaced by electric bassist, Nikke Ström. It starts slowly and gradually builds an arc of intensity that fades in the end. Here the influence from Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler is felt.

Despite the avant-garde elements, there is no doubt that Holmström is more of a whisperer than a screamer on this beautiful collection of music. However, his wide vocabulary gives depth and edge to standards, and he never takes any easy choices. It is a prime example of a traditional avant-gardist like Anderson.

Søren Nørbo / Wadada Leo Smith / Kresten Osgood
Dét, som ikke kan kaldes tilbage
ILK Music
2024

Gilbert Holmstrom and Kresten Osgood have played together for many years, but the trio with the Danish pianist Søren Nørbo and the legendary trumpeter and composer, Wadada Leo Smith, is a new constellation.

The album Dét, som ikke kan kaldes tilbage documents new music from Nørbo, who wrote all compositions for the occasion. This is worth noting since Nørbo is heard far too little on the Danish scene. He is one those unsung heroes like fellow pianist, Mikkel Mark, whom Osgood also has promoted, who seems to work at his own pace and time, so it is inspiring to hear new material from his hand.

The intimacy of the album is underlined by the fact that the music was recorded in Nørbo's living room. The naked presence of the room is felt from the beginning as Nørbo's echoing chords are punctuated by Smith's clear blue lines that glow while Osgood creates a bed of rustling percussion. The music seems to start and stop as it develops with all kinds of percussive sounds and something that sounds like a thumb piano.

Sometimes Nørbo plays with the plainness of a simple scale, as in the beginning of "Det banker stadig på" ("It still knocks") and other times he unfolds a beautiful landscape of classically inspired chords. Smith also engages in this dynamic conversation as he moves between fast runs on the horn, slow punctuation and a web of carefully crafted lines. Suddenly, it is only the drums that play, but then the piano joins again followed by the trumpet.

This aesthetic might best be described by one of the titles, "Når tre bliver til to bliver til én" ("When three becomes two becomes one"), which describes how instruments separate only to be unified again in a common language. It is a spiritual language that speaks with sorrow and joy, stillness and movement.

All in all, these five albums show how Osgood can speak with many musical languages and formats from the quintet to the trio and from swinging bop to explosive and lyrical avant-garde in the company of compatriots and legends. No matter what, he brings energy and joy to the room in spiritual praise of the music.

Tracks and Personnel

Live at H15 Studio

Tracks: Subway; The Halleys Comet -Light Blue Blues; Boa; Gilbert's Mood; A Case of Emergency; Blues for Muse; Bernie's Climb; Long Shadows; Stars over Marrakech; Happy Pretty.

Personnel: Erik Kimestad: Trumpet; Mads Egetoft: Saxophone; Jeppe Zeeberg: Piano; Matthias Petri: Bass; Kresten Osgood: Drums.

Low Light

Tracks: How High the Moon; Locomotive; Just One of Those Things; Low Tide; 'Round Midnight; Thelonious; Sacha's Blues; Epistrophy.

Personnel: Sacha Perry: piano; Ben Street: double bass; Kresten Osgood: drums.

With Black Arch

Tracks: No. 1; No. 2; No. 6; No. 4; No. 7 (the duo); No. 5; No. 8.

Personnel: Darius Heid: piano; Wilbert de Joode: bass; Kresten Osgood: drums.

Easy to Remember

Tracks: For All We Know; Without a Song; Contemplation; Wish I Knew; Night and Day; Easy to Remember; Hard to Forget; Uncle Ben.

Personnel: Gilbert Holmström: tenor sax; Peter Jansson: double bass (except #7); Nikke Ström: electric bass (#7); Kresten Osgood: drums.

Dét, som ikke kan kaldes tilbage

Tracks: Ét skridt og alt er forandret; Når tre bliver til to bliver til én; Træd på brættet, hvor det ikke knækker; Pausens værd er pausen værd; Det banker stadig på; Klip i papiret, så det bliver helt; Om det slutter; Sorgen rammer; Dét, som ikke kan kaldes tilbage.

Personnel: Søren Nørbo: piano; Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Kresten Osgood: drums.

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