Concert review from Trondheim Jazz Festival, June 2008
Two skateboarders, five musicians. A cacophony of rolling wheels and jazzy tunes. The jump. Brief pause of silence. Audience gasping at the hurricane like blend of sounds, quickly learning that this is actually the needlework of a brilliant musical mind, sowing together what no one has ever thought up before. Skateboard and jazz. Of course, come to think of it, a man grown up partly on a piece of wood mounted on wheels probably felt the groove rollin' around long before he turned to trust his fingers to create motion.
The scene is “Trikkestallen", the old streetcar-garage and now local skate park in Trondheim, Norway. The event is Trondheim Jazz Festival. Festival manager Ernst Wiggo Sandbakk has come up with yet another crazy idea and wants to combine jazz and skateboarding. -Two different worlds, but based on the same ideas around improvisation, freedom and personal expression, says Mr. Sandbakk. Ex-skateboarder talent Daniel Buner Formo (http://www.myspace.com/danielformo) graduated from the Jazz Conservatory at the NTNU University as a keyboard-player. Formo has quickly established himself as one of the leading organ players in Norway with bands such as Solid!, and Kobert. Now he has written a piece in five sequels, but with one nerve, and named it “Freewheeling". It represents the two loves of his lives, skateboarding and jazz. He was soon to find out it was to become a success.
The audience was unsure if they were to follow the skateboarder's impressive moves, or pay attention to the musicians at the end of the pool. It soon became clear that they played on the same team. When the skateboarders jumped you'd be sure to hear a cymbal crashing or a trumpet howling at the landing. Improvisation at its best. The dynamics were undisputable.
Trumpeter Arve Henriksen played two trumpets at the time, he screamed, shouted and sang, and knocked like a crazy man on the metal fence behind him. Havard Stub colored the music with his electronic guitar, and DJ Don Tommasso provided a youthful frame to the piece. It could have gone very wrong.
We could have gotten two worlds and two different expressions. But we didn't. At the pool in the old streetcar-garage, to drummer Erik Nylander's intense beats, jazz and skateboarding created a melting pot of rolling wheels and jazzy tunes.
Two skateboarders, five musicians. A cacophony of rolling wheels and jazzy tunes. The jump. Brief pause of silence. Audience gasping at the hurricane like blend of sounds, quickly learning that this is actually the needlework of a brilliant musical mind, sowing together what no one has ever thought up before. Skateboard and jazz. Of course, come to think of it, a man grown up partly on a piece of wood mounted on wheels probably felt the groove rollin' around long before he turned to trust his fingers to create motion.
The scene is “Trikkestallen", the old streetcar-garage and now local skate park in Trondheim, Norway. The event is Trondheim Jazz Festival. Festival manager Ernst Wiggo Sandbakk has come up with yet another crazy idea and wants to combine jazz and skateboarding. -Two different worlds, but based on the same ideas around improvisation, freedom and personal expression, says Mr. Sandbakk. Ex-skateboarder talent Daniel Buner Formo (http://www.myspace.com/danielformo) graduated from the Jazz Conservatory at the NTNU University as a keyboard-player. Formo has quickly established himself as one of the leading organ players in Norway with bands such as Solid!, and Kobert. Now he has written a piece in five sequels, but with one nerve, and named it “Freewheeling". It represents the two loves of his lives, skateboarding and jazz. He was soon to find out it was to become a success.
The audience was unsure if they were to follow the skateboarder's impressive moves, or pay attention to the musicians at the end of the pool. It soon became clear that they played on the same team. When the skateboarders jumped you'd be sure to hear a cymbal crashing or a trumpet howling at the landing. Improvisation at its best. The dynamics were undisputable.
Trumpeter Arve Henriksen played two trumpets at the time, he screamed, shouted and sang, and knocked like a crazy man on the metal fence behind him. Havard Stub colored the music with his electronic guitar, and DJ Don Tommasso provided a youthful frame to the piece. It could have gone very wrong.
We could have gotten two worlds and two different expressions. But we didn't. At the pool in the old streetcar-garage, to drummer Erik Nylander's intense beats, jazz and skateboarding created a melting pot of rolling wheels and jazzy tunes.
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