The Way Ahead - Bells, Ghosts and other Saints (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

The title says it all: here is music conceived under the influence of Albert Ayler, author of seminal free jazz pieces like “Bells” and “Ghosts” and one of the most celebrated interpreters of a gospel hymn specially cared by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, “When the Saints Go Marching In”. The name of the band (The Way Ahead) has the same referential weight: the way to go is in front of us, and you’ll find it while walking, as the poet (Federico Garcia Lorca) wrote. On the back there is history, and beyond you have the unknown. Each direction feeds from the other. The procedure could describe the respect that the present day American jazz has regarding its past, but this septet is Scandinavian, reuniting some of the best musicians active in Norway and Sweden. This explains why “Bells, Ghosts and Other Saints” seems simultaneously so familiar and so strange: the connection to the American jazz tradition is solid, but it comes without a cultural vinculation. As Europeans, Roligheten, Alberts, Barnö, Äleklint, Ståhl, Høyer and Østvang don’t feel the obligation to reproduce the exact parameters of the chosen materials, preferring it´s re-creation. The free jazz paradigm is free from itself, not to refuse it on the process, but to face it with fresh ears. The results are as much intriguing as they’re astonishing.

André Roligheten  tenor saxophone and clarinet

Kristoffer Alberts  alto and baritone saxophone

Niklas Barnö  trumpet

Mats Äleklint  trombone

Mattias Ståhl  vibraphone

Ola Høyer  double bass

Tollef Østvang  drums

Tracks 1 and 7 by Tollef Østvang (TONO/NCB) | Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 by Andre´ Roligheten (TONO/NCB)

Recorded September 16th 2017 by Marcus Forsgren at Studio Paradiso, Oslo, Norway | Mixed and mastered by Mats Äleklint, Stockholm, Sweden

Produced by The Way Ahead | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

Honest John w/ Ab Baars - Treem (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm’s writing for the band Honest John may have the kind of ondulations and turnings you recognize from Anthony Braxton’s compositions, but the use of chamber music historical references and of folk instruments (like the banjo played by Kim Johannesen) give it a very different dimension. The way “Treem” associates abstract, experimental moments with passages of the most explicit, bop-ish, groovy jazz is another distinctive aspect in presence, benefiting from the contribution of the guest musician in this album, a star of the Dutch jazz scene, Ab Baars, whose tenor saxophone and clarinet reproduce all the patrimony of jazz in new ways, while his shakuhachi, a traditional bamboo Japanese flute, reinforces the idea that this project is inventing an imaginary folklore for the global village we all live in. This is the last release with the participation of violinist Ole-Henrik Moe, replaced by accordeonist Kalle Moberg after the recording of the present collection of pieces due to his ongoing commitments to his compositional work, being one of Norway most prominent contemporary composers.

You couldn’t have a more touching and vibrant farewell from his part, giving to Moberg a supplementar responsability in what concerns the realization of the Honest John beatiful utopia: to open up very specific music to a broader audience.

1. Sailors of Liechtenstein 9:28

2. Aristocrats 7:20

3. Out of Doors 5:29

4. Treem 6:34

5. Fisheye 3:22

6. One Thing After the Other 14:46

7. Von 4:41

8. Prince of Venosa 5:29

Ole-Henrik Moe  violin

Kim Johannesen  guitar, guitar-banjo

Ola Høyer  double bass

Erik Nylander  drums, roland tr-77 drum machine

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm  alto sax, Bb-clarinet

Special guest:

Ab Baars  Tenor sax, Bb clarinet and shakuhachi

Sailors of Lichtenstein, Aristocrats and Treem composed by Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (Tono) and arranged by Honest John Von and Prince of Venosa composed by Ab Baars | Out of Doors, Fisheye and One thing after the other by Moe, Johannesen, Høyer, Nylander, Holm and Baars

Recorded by Christian Obermayer at Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, Oslo October 29th, 2016 | Mixed and mastered by Christian Obermayer May 2017

Produced by Honest John | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos

www.honestjohn.no

Cortex: Avant-Garde Party Music (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

Cortex? No, this isn’t jazz of the cerebral kind – even considering that the approach in “Avant-Garde Party Music” is very much the intelectual one coming from the bebop / hard bop era (when the music seated its users, inviting them to listen and not prioritarily to dance) and approaching our times through the free jazz evolutive line. Avant-garde the music certainly is, but you can still party with it, because this record grooves and swings like hell. Not in the conventional way, of course, but giving a chance to your temptation to shake the body. Having the transitional years going from bop to free as reference, it’s natural that you find on these tracks the influence of what Ornette Coleman did with Don Cherry. But this isn’t as simple as that: Cortex is a Scandinavian band and as such the music has a twist, the same you’ve found before in groups like The Thing, Atomic and The Core: a sort of hyper-realism, turning this jazz born in Europe even more “authentic” than the American original.

1 Grinder 5:49

2 Chaos 3:48

3 Waltz 5:58

4 (If you where) Mac Davis 3:38

5 Disturbanc 4:22

6 Obverse/Reverse 5:01

7 Perception 5:12

8 Off Course 3:54

Cortex

Thomas Johansson  trumpet

Kristoffer Berre Alberts  saxophones

Ola Høyer  double bass

Gard Nilssen  drums