Oslo Jazz Band review – the perfect antidote to Norwegian somnolence
Ronnie Scott’s, London
Norway’s minimalist jazz reserve takes an elegant swerve into snow-swept atmospherics and funkiness
Of all the locations to acquire exalted stature in the story of European jazz emancipation from the US since the 1960s, the most iconic has been Norway; for the influence of its minimalist reserve on an art-form renowned for excitability, most famously through the haunting saxophone sound of Jan Garbarek.
For the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Jazz festival, the specially formed Norwegian quintet, the Oslo Jazz Band (60-year-old pianist and Magnetic North Orchestra founder, Jon Balke, and 29-year-old double-bassist and singer Ellen Andrea Wang represent its generational extremes), played their first-ever gig together at Ronnie Scott’s. The two elegantly merged traditional, soft-stepping north-European delicacy and snow-swept atmospherics with a cool funkiness, reflecting the post-90s innovations of Oslo’s dancefloor scene, playing for each other and for the ensemble with a cohesion that implied they were halfway through a tour rather than launching one.
SOURCE: Music | The Guardian - Read entire story here.
