Amalie Dahl's Dafnie: Live at Kafé Hærverk

There is a strange relationship between alto saxophone and marine biology. Akira Sakata, the breathtaking yet unsung altoist of torrential intensity and a marine biology researcher, specialized in daphnia (dafnie in Scandinavian languages), those tiny, endearing-looking crustaceans, as early as 1969; Amalie Dahl made them her orchestra. She knew nothing of this weighty legacy.

Dafnie is made up of Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trumpet), Nicolas Leirtrø (bass) and Patrycja Wybrańczyk (drums), standing in here for Veslemøy Narvesen. Dahl plays alto saxophone here, and she invited the Swedish pianist Lisa Ullen to join them at Kafé Hærverk, an Oslo cultural venue specialising in independent and experimental music. Leirtrø, Bjelkerud and Haug are omnipresent on today's Norwegian improvised-music scene. Wybrańczyk is well established on the Polish and Norwegian scenes.

Dahl develops a joyful instrumental style that leans heavily toward free jazz, but in her ensembles Amalie Dahl's Dafnie and Amalie Dahl's Dafnie EXTENDED she maintains a finely calibrated balance between composition, arrangement and improvisational contours that guide the creativity of the musicians she leads effectively.

Live at Kafé Hærverk is therefore an album that is both very free and tightly framed. Bjelkerud and Haug's horns, whether solo or as a duo, bring a warm light that illuminates the whole.

"Wavelet," which opens the album, puts Ullén's playing in the foreground. The game of comparisons and influences is perilous and often futile; nevertheless, an image comes to mind. Curiously, Ullén sometimes seems closer to Cecil Taylor than many free pianists in the way she unsettles time, but without getting her fingers caught in Taylor's particular machinery of ever-changing spirals and rolls. Whereas Taylor heralded the storm, Ullén heralds calm weather. Meanwhile, Wybrańczyk's ever-attentive drumming develops an appropriate power without ever losing its great clarity.

Is it under Ullén's influence that this album resonates so peacefully? Or is it the result of a deliberate selection from the pieces played at a concert that lasted twice as long? As AAJ recalls, not the latter. This quietude pervades the album.

"Eco-Echoes" is a slow march beginning with an unaccompanied solo that reveals the breathing of Leirtrø's precise, melodic bass. It precedes the exposition of the theme and a solo by Bjelkerud full of nuance. "Bølgende" is gradually pulsed with delicate insistence by Leirtrø and Wybrańczyk, then Ullén, an ideal substrate for Haug's quietly expressive improvisation.

Amalie Dahl's Dafnie is an ensemble of musicians open to every kind of freedom. Dahl has a genuine melodic talent and an intelligence for shaping the arc of compositions and improvisations, both of which come through clearly on this very enjoyable album. The previous album, Står Op Med Solen (Aguirre Records/Sonic Transmissions Records, 2024) (Rise with the Sun), is cut from the same cloth and equally recommended. Daphnia are certainly fascinating little creatures.