Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Sermon Organ Combo: Sermon Organ Combo

3

Sermon Organ Combo: Sermon Organ Combo

By

View read count
Sermon Organ Combo: Sermon Organ Combo
American jazz styles have been travelling all over the world and getting absorbed by local musicians for close to a century now. Therefore there's nothing unusual about a soul-jazz organ trio coming out of Denmark, but the Sermon Organ Combo have a lot more going on than just playing recycled Jimmy Smith licks.

This trio draws from many different sources. You can hear traces of New Orleans, the Caribbean, Africa, Memphis and other places on this disc which is only available as a vinyl album or download. "Millimeterdemokrati" splices together bubbling, funky organ, twangy Steve Cropper-like soul guitar and choppy, tumbling drums. "Congo Car Chase" is a faster, more uptown style of funk with leader Bergur Nielsen biting off swirling guitar riffs around Lasse Funch Sorensen's in-the-groove drumming.

"Mogadishu" and "Kapelmonster" are two instances of the combo playing sweet, chicken-scratch funk. On the former there is an African tinge to Nielsen's guitar playing while on the latter, he adds greasy slide guitar that pushes the track into the realm of an Allman Brothers Band or Gov't Mule cut. "Blues Of Buddy Thompkins" stretches the trio's sound into the pop exotica of the Sixties, with Nielsen picking out what could be the theme to a vintage spy movie over cascading organ and knocking percussion.

"Hootenanny" is a fun hybrid with martial drum rolls, creeping organ fills and slow slide guitar out of Santo and Johnny's "Sleepwalk" bookending a slab of fast-tempoed classic organ jazz with Rasmus Stenholm really wailing. "Hogwash Shuffle" is the relaxed bluesy shuffle its title suggests and "Dear" ends the album with a ballad featuring solemn organ and slowly picked guitar.

The Sermon Organ Combo plays fun music that mixes together a lot of different styles. They can be incorrigibly funky, lay down fast jazz romps or recreate vintage pop with the right amount of tongue-in-cheek humor. If they ever made it into the jam band circuit, they would get a lot of people's attention.

Track Listing

Mogadishu; Millimeterdemokrati; Congo Car Chase; Blues of Buddy Thompkins; Hootenanny; Hogwash Shuffle; Kapelmonster; Dear.

Personnel

Bergur Nielsen: guitar; Rasmus Stenholm: Hammond B3; Lasse Funch Sorensen: drums.

Album information

Title: Sermon Organ Combo | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Gateway Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.