Friends & Neighbors - What's Wrong (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2016)

Here is another gem from the Norwegian scene, showing us that music can be energetic and melodic at the same time, as it was proposed by free jazz mavericks like Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and John Carter. The songs are even more melodic than those played by the bands in which we find André Roligheten, Thomas Johansson, Oscar Grönberg, Jon Rune Strøm and Tollef Østvang, namely Team Hegdal, Frode Gjerstad Trio, Cortex and All Included, and even the intensity and density of the music seems more compact and in-your-face.

The overall sound is the same of the most traditional jazz, and that is intentional and even programmatic, but you won’t find chord progressions in the new “What’s Wrong?”. Jazz can survive to its own stereotypes, and this collective has that notion as a purpose. The music is free, faithful to its historical references, but also disciplined, with no sounds in excess or missing and, above all, with none of the usual tics and tricks keeping the musicians in a comfort zone. Grab it before it vanishes.