Nacka Forum: We Are The World

Doom and gloom begone, now for some serious fun. Nacka Forum is back with their fifth recording. The Swedish/Danish quartet cherry picks the biography of jazz for the juiciest and sweetest music, combining systems and methodologies from Ornette Coleman to Sun Ra to create a high-spirited concoction of jazz entertainment.

Spinning We Are The World you get the idea, that in addition to the listener's, the pleasure of making this music is also the quartet's. Opening with a drum roll, "All We Are Saying" stumbles in with Jonas Kullhammar's tenor saxophone and Goran Kajfesš' trumpet blowing free notes that soon coalesce into a song form under the steady hand of Johan Berthling's bass. These guys love chaos. That is because seemingly, at any time, they can tame the entropy, shaping it into a blues, a march or a ballad.

Their ballad, "Buss 414" is accomplished with slide trumpet and slide saxophone, making it a slippery fellow. Once again, the piece is held together by Berthling's bowed then plucked bass, drummer Kresten Osgood accenting with delicate drum textures. They carve a piece of Rahsaan Roland Kirk on the danceable "Do the Nacka Forum," Kullhammar blowing the double bell of his braithophone over electronics and the mayhem RRK would have loved.

The highlights here are a cover of Johnny Dyani's "Magwaza" and Osgood's tribute to free jazz drummer Jerome Cooper of The Revolutionary Ensemble, "Thinking about J.C." The Dyani cover is played straight, with all it's soulfulness intact. Kullhammar's saxophones harmonizing with Kajfesš's trumpet. The quartet's playing grounds the music in an earthiness that grabs your soul. The latter piece scrambles the brain, not unlike the American band Mostly Other People Do The Killing. They lay down a blues over some fuzzy electronics and bring big chest bump. But it's all just in fun.