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Norwegian Digital Jazz Festival 2020, Part 2
by Mark Sullivan
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Norwegian Digital Jazz Festival Sentralen Oslo, Norway November 24-December 1, 2020 November 24 Silje Nergaard Silje Nergaard is one of the new breed of jazz singers who writes most of her material--rather than singing jazz standards and songs from the Great American Songbook--occupying a stylistic space somewhere between traditional swing-oriented vocalists and singer-songwriters. “Based On a Thousand True Stories" opened the concert in a ...
read moreMats Eilertsen Trio & Trio Mediaeval: Memorabilia
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Talk of an album sounding highly reminiscent of something that could be released on Manfred Eicher's ECM label is quite common. But it does not come as a surprise anymore that much of today's music shares similar melancholic and minimalist contemporary leanings with the aesthetic found on the pioneering Munich-based label. However, this debut date, led between bassist Mats Eilertsen, his trio and Trio Mediaeval, screams ECM. Not only have both Eilertsen and the vocal trio recorded extensively with ECM, ...
read moreMats Eilertsen: Reveries and Revelations
by John Eyles
In rock music, the heyday of “and friends" albums (Leon Russell or Eric Clapton releases for examples) seems long past; on such records, the headliner was joined by a famous star names on different tracks, their presence helping to attract publicity and boost sales. The last hooray of the genre probably came with charity recordings such as Band Aid's “Do They Know It's Christmas," “We Are the World" and their ilk. However, away from rock music, Reveries and Revelations suggests ...
read moreMats Eilertsen Trio: And Then Comes The Night
by Mark Sullivan
Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen has a large discography as a performer, but his compositional talents are equally striking. His previous ECM release as a leader, 2016's Rubicon, was a composer's showcase featuring a septet. But he has also worked in much smaller configurations, for example Meander (Ora Fonogram, 2017) his recent duet recording with guitarist Jo David Meyer Lysne. This album reunites him with pianist Harmen Fraanje (who appeared on Rubicon) and drummer Thomas Strønen (a fellow band ...
read moreMats Eilertsen: And Then Comes The Night
by Mike Jurkovic
On their first offering for ECM as a trio, And Then Comes The Night, stalwart label mates: bassist/leader/composer {Mats Eilertsen, drummer Thomas Strønen, and ethereal pianist Harmen Fraanje deftly create a sustained work of near impossible beauty and sublime human interaction. With evanescent shifts of time, shaded harmony and tone, Eilertsen--his nuanced writing highlighted on the acutely hailed Rubicon (ECM, 2016)--the bassist boldly strips down from septet to a trio, resulting in a music more expansive, more revelatory ...
read moreSkydive Trio: Sun Sparkle
by Karl Ackermann
Norwegian guitarist Thomas Dahl's primary project is the Skydive Trio with bassist Mats Eilertsen and drummer Olavi Louhivuouri. The trio is an off-shoot of a quintet of the same name that includes tenor saxophonist Tore Brunborg and pianist Alexi Tuomarila. Sun Sparkle is the second release from the smaller group whose sound, like the album title, reflects ideas from both familiar and eclectic musical worlds. Dahl has collected a number of honors in his native land, including Norway's ...
read moreSkydive Trio: Sun Sparkle
by Gareth Thompson
There are parts of Norway where the sun hardly sets for months on end. It stays bright all night and dawn is never dark. The essence of this strange polar light finds its way into Sun Sparkle, the second album from Norwegian act Skydive Trio. Its predecessor, Sun Moee, also referenced our great burning star, which can hardly be coincidence. There is something both mythic and solar about this trio's music. Fittingly it also comes over as equally retro and ...
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