Pocket Corner

I was a bit lightheaded after new years eve, and started a series on personal black holes in music (with Jazzmob), and even promised myself not to check everybody else´s best of 2009 lists, and buy too many records again. But you know promises. Over at blogger Steinskog (Norwegian) I found Didrik Ingvaldsen Pocket Corner: "4010 Local Time" (Checkpoint Charlie Audio Production 2009).
Didrik Ingvaldsen and Pocket Corner are new to me, but the band started in 1986, and Ingvaldsen has been a long time part of the Stavanger jazz scene. Today the band is Didrik Ingvaldsen - trumpet, Glenn B. Henriksen - alto-sax, Vidar Schanke - guitar, Mikaell Olsson - double bass and Ståle Birkeland - drums.
Reviewers claim this is music in the land of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, and that might be so. I just say it´s good jazz music, and you may download from eMusic and iTunes (quite cheap in Norway at least).

Jazzmob

Sometimes (or pretty often) I get a bit upset when I realize I have missed out completely on some bands or artists. Why on earth have I never listened to Jazzmob until now?
After reading an interview with Jon Klette (Crimetime Orchestra) in the latest Jazznytt (Norwegian jazz magazine, no 6, 2009), I got my hands on "Infernal Machine" (Jazzaway 2006) and "Flashback" (Jazzaway 2008). Both of them are great albums, with what everyone seem to call hard swinging jazz, and that describes the music well. It smells good of Coltrane and Miles, and a reviewer in AAJ even find some Soft Machine here, but most of all it´s Jazzmob. Choose "Flash" if you want only one, it´s an energetic live album.
There are two more Jazzmob albums on Jazzaway: "The Truth" (2005) and "Pathfinder" (2003).

The band members are: Kåre Nymark (tp), Jon Klette (as), Gisle Johansen (ts), Anders Aarum (keyb), Per Zanussi (b) and Andreas Bye (dr).

I already run a classics series in the blog, and this may just be the start of a series on my black holes in music.