Stefan Pasborg - Ritual Dances (February 11, 2022 Sunnyside Records)

Danish drummer/composer Stefan Pasborg grew up in a household of ballet dancers, allowing him to have an intimate relationship with their lifestyle and performances. One of his first formative musical experiences was witnessing a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s legendary ballet, The Rite of Spring, by The Danish Royal Ballet. The experience embedded a love for Stravinsky’s work that has manifested in Pasborg’s new recording, Ritual Dances.

Pasborg has been an important voice in the European jazz and improvised music scenes for the past two decades. His dynamic drumming and eclectic tastes have pushed him into collaborations with many stellar musicians, including Wadada Leo Smith, Tomasz Stańko, Miroslav Vitouš, amongst many others. Pasborg has also led a number of celebrated ensembles, the most notable being Ibrahim Electric.

Even though his compositions were seen as dangerously revolutionary when they premiered, Igor Stravinsky’s music has inspired listeners for generations. His many works have become part of the canon for many philharmonic orchestras but are still presented in more challenging programs. Stravinsky was a key figure in avant-garde symphonic writing, but it was his ballets, The Rite of Spring, The Firebird, and Petrushka, that solidified his legend.

The Rite of Spring and The Firebird were the two ballets that inspired Pasborg to reinterpret the Stravinsky’s work for a jazz big band. Ritual Dances takes music from these two works as a basis for Pasborg’s re-structuring. The pieces are heard performed by two large ensembles: the UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra on two live cuts and Blood Sweat Drum+Bass for the complete studio recording. The bands are augmented by a number of soloists and electronic musicians.

The program begins with UMO’s take of “Spring Round Dance,” a bombastic and grooving piece with winding Rhodes and aggressive horns. “Sacrificial Dance” introduces the Blood Sweat Drum+Bass ensemble with a marching cadence, which builds into a rocking ending with Jeppe Kjellberg’s wailing guitar. Mystery and intensity are intertwined on “Ritual Dance,” while Pasborg’s subtle drums lead into “Adoration of the Earth,” where Stravinsky’s famous theme can clearly be heard on Fredrik Lundin’s tenor sax.

Overdriven guitar ambience leads to the edgy, martial cadence of “Dances of the Young Girls;” swirling crescendos feature a brilliant Ståle Storløkken organ solo. Ethereal percussion provides an aural bed for Goran Kajfes’s trumpet on “Introduction,” while “Princess’ Game” borrows from The Firebird in an enticingly spastic jaunt. The slinky sound of “Infernal Dance” has a noirish tinge. The laconic “Tableau” features a warm and slightly western duet between tenor player Anders Banke and guitarist Kjellberg before launching into a challenging rhythmic workout. Blood Sweat revisit “Spring Round Dance” with Lundin’s sax singing over the infectious, churning rhythms. The recording concludes with UMO’s intense and episodic performance of “Dances of the Young Girls,” featuring standout performances by Seppo Kantonen and Jussi Kannaste.

Stefan Pasborg’s reinvention of Igor Stravinsky’s iconic works from The Rite of Spring and The Firebird are as brilliant as they are invigorating. Ritual Dances doesn’t rewrite Stravinsky so much as bring his work into the 21st century in bombastic style. 

1. Spring Round Dance (Live)

2. Sacrificial Dance

3. Ritual Dance

4. Adoration of the Earth

5. Dances of the Young Girls (Studio)

6. Introduction

7. Princess' Game

8. Infernal Dance

9. Tableau

10. Spring Round Dance (Studio)

11. Dances of the Young Girls (Live)

Stefan Pasborg - drums

Anders Banke - tenor sax (tracks 3, 5, 6, 8, 9), clarinet (tracks 2, 3, 4, 6, 7)

Anders Filipsen - keyboards (tracks 2-10)

Fredrik Lundin - tenor sax (tracks 3, 4, 10)

Goran Kajfes - trumpet (track 6)

Jeppe Kjellberg - guitar (tracks 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Jeppe Tuxen - Hammond B3 organ (tracks 6, 8)

Jussi Kannaste - tenor sax (tracks 1, 11)

Mikael Myrskog - Moog bass (tracks 1, 7, 8, 11)

Rune Harder Olesen - percussion (tracks 7, 10)

Seppo Kantonen - keyboards (tracks 1, 11)

Ståle Storløkken - Hammond B3 organ (track 5)

UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra (tracks 1 & 11):

Ville Vannemaa - conductor

Mikko Mäkinen - soprano, alto sax

Sampo Kasurinen - tenor sax, flute

Teemu Salminen - tenor sax, bass clarinet

Max Zenger - baritone sax, bass clarinet

Marko Portin - flute

Teemu Mattsson - trumpet

Timo Paasonen - trumpet

Tomi Nikku - trumpet

Tero Saarti - trumpet

Kasperi Sarikoski - trombone

Mikko Mustonen - trombone

Pekka Laukkanen - trombone

Mikael Långbacka - bass trombone

Aarne Riikonen - percussion

Blood Sweat Drum+Bass (tracks 2-10):

Jens Christian "Chappe" Jensen - conductor, saxophones (track 9)

Michael Mølhede - trumpet, flugelhorn

Bent Hjort - trumpet, flugelhorn

Malte Pedersen - trumpet, flugelhorn

René Damsbak - trumpet, flugelhorn

Ole Visby - soprano sax, clarinet, bass clarinet

Julie Kjaer - alto sax, flute, alto flute

Jacob Rønne Danielsen - tenor saxophone, contrabass clarinet, clarinet

Nikolaj Schneider - tenor sax, clarinet

Harald Langåsdalen - baritone sax, clarinet

Jens Kristian Bang - trombone

Jonathan Bruun Meyer - trombone

Kirstine Kjaerulff Ravn - trombone

Jonathan Henneveld - bass trombone

Rasmus Svale Kjaergård Lund - tuba

Sisse Foged Hyllestad - bass

Magnus Lindgaard Jochumsen - percussion

Søren Lyngsø Knudsen - electronics

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Ståle Storløkken - Ghost Caravan (April 30, 2021 Hubro Music)

The venerable composer and keyboardist Ståle Storløkken follows up his previous Hubro release (and solo debut recording), The Haze of Sleeplessness, with a second solo album performed entirely on pipe organ and recorded at Steinkjer Church by Stian Westerhus.

While the Norwegian Grammy-nominated 'The Haze of Sleeplessness' used a whole keyboard-museum’s worth of antique synths and contemporary digital software to create its vast array of sounds, everything on ‘Ghost Caravan’ is the product of one organ’s pedals, pipes and sonic plumbing.

1. Cloudland I

2. First Sphere

3. Cloudland II

4. Second Sphere

5. Cloudland III

6. Ghost Caravan

7. Cloudland IV

8. Third Sphere

9. Drifting On Wasteland Ocean

10. Fourth Sphere

Ståle Storløkken - Church Organ

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Frode Haltli - Avant Folk (HUBRO MUSIC April 2018)

The opening track of ‘Avant Folk’ is like a dream of what contemporary experimental folk-meets-jazz-meets-chamber-music might be. Composed by Frode Haltli, ‘Hug’ begins with a galumphing off-centre rhythm that could be an accompaniment to elephants waltzing before the wheezing bellows-breath of Haltli’s accordion creates delightfully airy whispers of noise that drift across the other instruments like wisps of cloud across the sky.

Then we get the entry of the theme, a compulsive Nordic ear-worm folk melody led by Hardanger fiddle and violin that’s half woozy sea-shanty and half universal pan-African groove, backed up by shuffle-beat drumming like Ed Blackwell with Ornette Coleman. As if that wasn’t enough for one tune already, the music continues to evolve, with a beautifully poised improvised solo on trumpet by Hildegunn Øiseth that sounds so perfect it should really win some kind of award on its own. The groove slows down, the elephant waltz returns to form a satisfyingly symmetrical conclusion and the music gradually resolves into silence, bringing to an end what has been seven and a half minutes of continuous invention. It’s quite a performance, and quite a band, the dectet of expert players covering enough instruments between them to simulate the tonal breadth of a full orchestra while retaining the humble, home-made aesthetic of a traditional folk ensemble, matching compositional sophistication and individual virtuosity with collective empathy and hard-won grace.

Elsewhere, as the album develops, the folk references expand to include echoes of west African desert blues, east European gypsy swing, Armenian double-reed laments and lugubrious Nordic village knees-ups on a range of material partly adapted from traditional hymn-tunes and songs from Norway and the Faroe islands to form a kind of north Atlantic gumbo. But ‘Avant Folk’ never feels like a slapdash fusion of different elements mashed together without regard for the integrity of the whole. Importantly, the band always sounds like a proper band, as fleet-footed as any improvisational jazz ensemble, and able to hurdle with ease the normal generic divides separating one type of music from another. By the time the listener reaches the end of the album’s final track, ’Neid’ – another Frode Haltli composition, like the opening ‘Hug’ – ‘Avant Folk’ has effectively created its own genre, a pleasingly congruent collection of stylistic traits that sounds like nothing so much as itself. All the music, whether composed by Frode Haltli or adapted from antique sources, is arranged jointly by Haltli and the band members.

So where did ‘Avant Folk’ come from and why does it sound so good? For a start, Frode Haltli (born 1975, Norway) is, like many of the ensemble’s star players, a classically-trained virtuoso who from an early age (he began the accordion at seven) has been well used to working between different forms of music, from traditional folk to the avant-garde, and to collaborating with players from all sorts of backgrounds. Haltli also composes, both on his own and with Maja S.K.Ratkje (his co-producer on ‘Avant Folk’, who is responsible for the album’s editing and mixing), and has developed very strong links with fellow musicians and composers both within Norway and internationally, once again working across the normal boundaries demarcating one musical form from another, recording the complete accordion works of Arne Nordheim, for example, but also appearing with the various groups of jazz saxophonist Trygve Seim. His debut recording for ECM, ‘Looking On Darkness’ was released in 2002, followed by ‘Passing Images’ from 2007, (with trumpeter Arve Henriksen, violist Garth Knox and Maja S.K. Ratkje on vocals), and ‘Air’ (2016), a recording of music for accordion and strings by Hans Abrahamsen and Bent Sorensen with the Arditti Quartet and the Trondheim Soloists. His debut release for Hubro, ‘Vagabonde Blu’ (2014), is a live solo recording featuring works by Salvatore Sciarrino, Aldo Clementi and Arne Nordheim. As if any further exemplars of Frode Haltli’s customary melding of the classical repertoire with folk, jazz and beyond were needed, we can also note his current duo with the Norwegian violinist Gjermund Larsen; The Snowflake Trio (with Irish flautist Nulala Kennedy and Norwegian fiddler Vegar Vardal); and a trio with another fiddler, Ragnhild Furebotten, and the Swedish nyckelharpist Emilia Amper.

The breadth of Frode Haltli’s interests is not unusual in Norwegian music and this is paralleled by a number of his collaborators on ‘Avant Folk’, many of whom – like the inspirational fiddler Erlend Apneseth (a regular Hubro artist in a number of settings) or the keyboardist Stale Storlokken (of Supersilent and Motorpsycho, among others) enjoy similarly wide-ranging careers that weave in and out of numerous musical styles and settings. But the last word on ‘Avant Folk’ has to be the music. The album ends on the suitably epic note of Haltli’s ‘Neid’, an original composition that sounds absolutely timeless, matching a maelstrom of squeaky-gate post-serialist glissandi with an ancient-sounding dirge-like refrain. Haltli’s own stunningly adept accordion solo, its intensely emotional voicings heard against a splashy biscuit tin-lid style percussive backdrop, then gives way to the stately pairing of gently-stepping double-bass and country-roots electric guitar that in turn heads eastwards towards the Balkans before ending up back home in the northlands again, the thirteen minute performance superbly resolving itself in a final sequence of transcendent hymn-like solemnity. Wow.

Frode Haltli – accordion

Erlend Apneseth – Hardanger fiddles

Hans P. Kjorstad – violin

Rolf-Erik Nystrøm – saxophones

Hildegunn Øiseth – trumpet, goat horn and vocals

Ståle Storløkken – harmonium and synthesizers

Juhani Silvola – guitars and electronics

Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir – guitar and vocals

Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson – double bass

Siv Øyunn Kjenstad – drums and vocals

A

Kingo

Trio

Hug

B

Gråtar'n

Neid