Jazz Articles

Flux: Peninsulator

by Ian Patterson
February 27, 2010

Any band setting out to make a debut recording these days has a potentially inexhaustible number of influences from which to draw upon. Consequently, it is increasingly difficult to sound unlike anybody else. Flux, whose members attend Copenhagen's Rhythmic Music Conservatory, has produced a recording with echoes of progressive rock, classical chamber music and post-modern jazz influences ranging from Pat Metheny to Jaga Jazzist. To a large extent it succeeds in sounding original.

The opener, “Albino African Endangered Rhino," kicks ...

Flux: Peninsulator

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 7, 2010

Uniting musicians from several parts of Europe, Copenhagen-based band Flux has the kind of restless cosmopolitan energy that its name seems to suggest. On Peninsulator the group plays its very own brand of postmodern jazz, referencing a wealth of styles from post-bop to classical, rock, and world music, while still being able to forge its own sprawling identity. At the heart of the group's sound lies the interplay between guitarist Per Arne Ferner and flutist Mikkel Breck. ...

Jazzmob: Flashback

by Nic Jones
April 17, 2009

This mob, perhaps as a kind of homage to “the mob," takes no prisoners. It deals in a brand of fusion in which the immediacy of the moment is of paramount importance and the niceties and established intensities of the medium smack too much of politeness and a lack of engagement with the urgency of being alive. This set, caught live at the Molde International Jazz Festival in July 2006, proclaims it all from the rooftops.

From the opening “Pathfinder," ...

Sam Newsome & Lucian Ban: The Romanian-American Jazz Suite

by Budd Kopman
July 22, 2008

The Romanian-American Jazz Suite, by soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome and pianist Lucian Ban, is another very good example of how the jazz aesthetic of personal expression be applied to other music (here Romanian folk music and Christmas carols) and, in essence, subsume it. The project has its genesis in an award given by CEC Artslink to promote cross-cultural projects between the United States and Central Europe, among other regions. Having Romanian roots, Ban lent Newsome a collection ...

Sam Newsome & Lucian Ban: The Romanian-American Jazz Suite

by Terrell Kent Holmes
July 16, 2008

Sam Newsome and Lucian Ban took a handful of Romanian folk songs and gave them jazz arrangements, then combined them with some original songs inspired by Romanian culture to produce The Romanian-American Jazz Suite, an excellent balance of the modern and the traditional, rendered artfully by a first-rate band. “Transylvanian Dance" isn't what one would expect. It's laid-back funk, with Sorin Romanescu scratching on guitar and altoist Newsome and the irrepressible Alex Harding on baritone sax having ...

Jazzmob: Infernal Machine

by Nic Jones
March 24, 2008

This isn't so much a recreation as it is a reinvestigation of the fusion genre in that brief period thirty odd years ago when the idea was rife with positive implications and before the sterility set in.

While this program isn't as radical in its departure from the norm as Miles Davis' music from that period was (what is?) it still burns with greater intensity than more established names seem to muster. Even on the relatively tranquil “One For Simmons" ...

Sonny Simmons: Last Man Standing

by Nic Jones
March 2, 2008

This is the latest in a series of albums under saxophonist Sonny Simmons' name put out by the Norwegian Jazzaway label; a further instalment in the documentation of an abundantly creative artist, but one who only relatively recently has started to receive the kind of exposure he deserves.

The setting here is a straight-ahead one and Simmons thrives in it. In the company of a rhythm section that does everything a listener might ask of it, and a whole lot ...

Klaus Holm Kollektif: What Was That You Said?

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 26, 2008

The Kollektif is the third incarnation of Norwegian reed player Klaus Ellerhusen Holm's group. Holm was awarded as the Young Nordic Jazzcomet in 2003 and is a member of bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Norwegian Quintet, Zanussi 5 and Geir Lysne Listening Ensemble. His current Kollektif members--bassist Ole Morten Vågan (Motif, Bugge Wesseltoft New Conception of Jazz, Håvard Wiik Trio, Maria Kannegaard Trio), and drummer Ole Thomas Kolberg (who has recorded with American saxophonist Sonny Simmons)--began working in 2003 as the ...

The Core: Blue Sky

by Tom Greenland
October 27, 2006

The Core is an exciting, highly energetic young band from Norway, consisting of Espen Aalberg (drums), Kjetil Møster (tenor, soprano saxophones), Erlend Slettevoll (piano) and Steinar Raknes (bass), with Nils Olav Johansen (guitar) sitting in. Drawing their inspiration from such '60s energy players as Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler and John Coltrane, these former schoolmates of the jazz academy in Trondheim have developed impressive technique and close collective cohesion. Blue Sky, their second release (following 2004's Vision), features a ...

Roundtrip: Two Way Street

by Germein Linares
November 21, 2005

Two Way Street is the impressive and raucous debut by the youthful Scandinavian trio known as Roundtrip. Formerly called Mega Tsunami, the group changed its name after the recent disaster in Southeast Asia. These nine offerings are clever, rhythmically charged compositions, with Klaus Ellerhusen Holm's alto and baritone work clearly rooted in the exuberance of his main influences, Eric Dolphy and Sonny Simmons.

Holm's adventures, fueled by bassist Ole Morten Vågan and drummer Ole Thomas Kolberg, are surprisingly ...