Sly & Robbie meet Nils Petter Molvær

Sly Dunbar (dr)
Robbie Shakespeare (b)
Nils Petter Molvær (tp)
Jan Bang (live sampling, keyb)
Eivind Aarset (g)

These guys are ready for concerts in 2015, playing new material too. Some band!

Via NPM´s Facebook.

Videos from Moldejazz 2014

I was at the Molde International Jazz Festival 14 - 19 July without attending any concert this year!
I´m not proud of that, but blame it on my health. Here at least are some short videos uploaded by festival news magazine "Fire Flate".

- Sidsel Endresen (Artist in Residence), Erik Honoré and Jan Bang remixing Stefano Bollani and Hamilton de Holanda.

- Merriwinkle - Sidsel Endresen, Helge Sten and Christian Wallumrød

- Ingebjørg Loe Bjørnstad and Frode Haltli. Bjørnstad is singing in her glorious Norwegian Surnadal dialect. This is a song from their fantastic album "Hæm" (= Home) (Øra Fonogram 2013).

Hamasyan, Henriksen, Bang, Aarset

Tigran Hamasyan (keyb), Arve Henriksen (tp, voc), Jan Bang (live sampling) and Eivind Aarset (g) at Bergen Jazzforum 28 February 2014.

According to the Bergen Jazzforum web site, the quartet will record an album for ECM later this year.

December Video Festival

Gare Du Nord from Lotta Melin on Vimeo.

I have been surfing YouTube and Vimeo a lot these last days, to catch up after my lost autumn in hospital.
Here is a selection of jazz, imrov, noise and dance for you.

- Arve Henriksen, Jan Bang and Ingar Zach at the Nefertiti 6 Dec 2013.
- Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans and Weasel Walter - Dither Extravaganza - Gowanus Lofts 26 Oct 2013.
- C Spencer Yeh, Chris Corsano and Stine Janvin Motland at Wels Unlimited 9 Nov 2013.
- Lasse Marhaug & Kjell Bjørgengen at Wels Unlimited 8 Nov 2013.
- "Gare Du Nord". Coreography Lotta Melin. Music Maja Ratkje.

Arve Henriksen and Supersilent

Here you get Arve Henriksen (trumpet, vocal) at Jazzhouse Copenhagen (9 October 2013), with Jan Bang (live sampling), Audun Kleive (percussion), Ingar Zach (percussion) and Helge Andreas Norbakken (percussion), and Supersilent with Stian Westerhus Live at Paradox, Incubate Festival, Tilburg (17 September 2013).

Supersilent is Arve Henriksen, Ståle Storløkken and Helge Sten.

Organize your own PUNKT festival

I didn´t make it to the PUNKT festival of Kristiansand (No) this year, so I have compensated by listening quite a lot to the new albums from Arve Henriksen and Jan Bang.

If you buy Henriksen´s "Places of Worship" (Rune Grammofon 2013) and Bang´s "Narrative from the Subtropics" (Jazzland 2013), you will have most of the central members of the PUNKT gang on two discs. I recommend both of them!

Arve Henriksen is taking us to different places of worship, with titles like "The Sacristan", "Abandoned Cathedral" og "La Cimetière Marin", together with Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Lars Danielson, Stahlquartett, Eivind Aarset, Jon Balke, Ingar Zach. Beautiful music with a dark edge to it, and the album ends with the touching "Shelter from the storm" with Erik Honoré singing.

Jan Bang is traveling the Subtropics this time, on "Narrative from the Subtropics" (Jazzland 2013), presenting 13 pretty short tracks of intense music, using both poetry reading (in Norwegian by Nils Chr. Moe-Repstad), traditional Estonian singing (Tuule Kann) and a bunch of great musicians. the full list of participants: Jan Bang, Lars Danielsson, Sidsel Endresen, Dai Fujikura, Tigran Hamsayan, Arve Henriksen, Erik Honoré, Robert Jürjendal, Tuule Kann, Nils Petter Molvær, Nils Chr. Moe- Repstad)Undark, Stian Westerhus, Eivind Aarset and David Soler.

If you want to read some more than my short message, here are the AAJ reviews of "Narrative from the Subtropic" and "Places of worship".

Rune Grammofon gave me a CD version of the Arve Henriksen album too, when I bought the LP, Jazzland didn´t even offer a download code with the vinyl. Now who won that competition?

Three Trapped Tigers at PUNKT 2012

The Punkt Festival in Kristiansand is starting tomorrow (6 - 8 September).

I´m not going this year, but let´s get a PUNKT feeling anyway in the blog, with Three Trapped Tigers in concert, and a remix by Arve Henriksen, Jan Bang, Eivind Aarset and Erik Honoré from the 2012 festival (posted on YouTube by Jazzland).

Jan Bang: "Sinking Ship"

Jan Bang recently uploaded the piece "Sinking Ship", taken from the forthcoming album "Narrative from the Subtropics" (Jazzland 2013), on SoundCloud. The album will be released 6 September, nicely timed with PUNKT 2013.

Musicians:

Jan Bang: samples, programming
Arve Henriksen: trumpet, vocal
Stian Westerhus: guitar
David Soler: guitar samples.

Stian Westerhus/Jan Bang/Erik Honoré

Here is an excerpt from Stian Westerhus (g), Jan Bang (live sampling, electronics) and Erik Honoré´s (live sampling, electronics) concert at Tape To Zero in Oslo (April 2013). Sounds (and looks) like a great show!

Tord Knudsen: Visuals. Johnny Skalleberg: Live sound. Ingo Biermann: Video.

Please watch more videos from the festival at Kjetil Husebø´s YouTube channel.

Tape to Zero 2013

If you happen to be in Oslo 18 and 19 April, you should check out Kjetil Husebø´s two day festival Tape to Zero.

Most exciting perhaps, is Stian Westerhus´cooperation with the PUNKT comrades Jan Bang and Erik Honoré and the "doom piano trio" (don´t ask!) Splashgirl!

And don´t forget Splashgirl´s new album "Field Day Rituals" (Hubro 2013).

Victoria

The first screening of Torun Lian´s movie "Victoria", based on Knut Hamsun´s novel from 1898, will happen March 1st.

I am happy to inform you all that the soundtrack is made by Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Gaute Storaas and Arve Henriksen.

Punkt in Milano

Jan Bang (electronics), Erik Honoré (electronics), Arve Henriksen (trumpet, voc, perc), Eivind Aarset (guitar, electronics) and Hamid Drake (drums) in Milano 20 Jan 2013.

And don´t forget Eivind Aarset´s beautiful new album "Dream Logic" on ECM (Free Jazz review), Rune Grammofon´s Arve Henriksen vinyl box set, "Solidification" (The Liminal review).

"Solidification" contains all Arve Henriksen´s solo albums on Rune, with bonus tracks, 2 DVDs and the new album "Chron". "Chron" will probably only be released as part of this box set, or?

Uncommon Deities

Look out for the album "Uncommon Deities" (Samadhisound), to be released 24 September. This is music based on David Sylvian´s audiovisual installation at the Punkt festival in Kristiansand (Norway) in 2011, with lyrics by Paal-Helge Haugen (the god poems - "The God of....") and Nils Christian Moe-Repstad ("I swallowed earth for this").

These musicians are named on the cover: David Sylvian (reading English versions of the Norwegian poems), Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Sidsel Endresen and Arve Henriksen, and let´s mention the rest of them too: Ingar Zach, John Tilbury, Philip Jeck, Eivind Aarset, Dai Fujikura and Margalit Oved.

I had a great time at the concert in the installation at Punkt last year, and it sounds good on record too!
I have to admit that I tend to let David Sylvian´s warm voice just float around my ears, and not concentrate too much on the poetry, and I guess that just how much you will like this album, will depend on how much you enjoy the texts.

Video: Marc Atkins and Chris Bigg.


And since we are back to Punkt in this blog post, you may just as well read John Kelman´s report from this year´s Eno curated festival too, published in All About Jazz, right here.
Kelman does not write short blog posts, like some of us do!

Another video festival for you

1) Commissioned work by Hans Magnus Ryan, Pekka Stokke and Helge Sten.
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Oslo) autumn 2011.
2) Jan Bang, Erik Honoré and Sidsel Endresen. From PUNKT festival visiting at London Jazzfestival 2008.
3) Sidsel Endresen and Jan Bang live, Hexagon, Grenoble 2011.

PUNKT 2011 - Day three

I had really hoped to see Evan Parker perform live with Ingar Zach and Stian Westerhus at the Sørlandet Art Center Saturday afternoon, but we got three 20 min long solos, Parker first, then Zach and finally Westerhus. When Stian Westerhus entered, the dominance of the quiet improv was over for good at this year´s festival. He went rock and noise from the word go, but quieted down with some bow playing on the guitartowards the end, and I observed that even Evan Parker pulled his fingers out of his ears. Three fine solos, but a pretty wild mix!

On the main stage at Agder Theater Arve Henriksen´s album "Cartography" was performed, with Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Ingar Zach, Eivind Aarset, Anna Maria Friman, David Sylvian and Arve Henriksen. This is still an absolute beautiful piece of music, but it was perhaps a little bit more dark now, adding some more excitement to the music.

The great Susanne Sundfør owned the stage, with a strong performance of her own songs, almost disappearing in smoke. I was afraid we would have a Spinal Tap moment there, when she had to cough, but she was OK!

The professors Helge Sten and John Paul Jones led the first of Saturday´s seminars at the Agder University, demonstrating the KYMA system. This is a bit too much technology for me (some graphic interface stuff for musicians), but with good teachers,and some playing to demonstrate, we had a nice hour at school.
Later in the evening they played the final concert of the festival, starting off with what looked like an iPad performance, but ended up in a massive electronica show. Cool!

Oh yes, there were live remixes too. My favorites of the evening happened to be Nils Petter Molvær and Guy Sigsworth making a hysteric disco mix out of Susanne Sundfør and Sacred Harp´s concerts, and Molvær at it again, with Jan Bang, Marilyn Mazur, Eivind Aarset and Erik Honoré, remixing Minibus Pimps.

Images from PUNKT 2011 - Second day

It was a long Friday at PUNKT, with seminars, concerts and live remixes.

The first seminar of the day was with Fiona Talkington talking to "turntable artist" Philip Jeck. A fascinating and talkative artist! He was not particularly interested in claiming that one genre was better than the other. "There are bad people in all genres". He also advised the students at the university to take any opportunity offered. "Don´t be cynical about anything! That´s my motto!".

A pretty nervous Evan Parker entered the stage, admitting that he did not feel comfortable speaking in these academic settings. What he did do, was to use his nervousness to illustrate some of the nature of improvisation, when he lost track of his own manuscript. His talk was on composition and/or improvisation, and the correct title in the program should have been "Semantic confusions and their consequences in the discourse on improvisation", not "confusion". Glad to help you all there.
And thanks to Evan Parker I may even manage to sneak in a Wyatt - Benge link, since he told us that Alfreda Benge introduced him to John Stevens, while she was working at Ronnie Scott´s when she was studying.

On the main stage at the Agder Teater we were in for a slow and meditative evening, with quiet improv (Koboku Senju, JohnTilbury/Evan Parker/John Russell/Okkyung Lee), music composed by Dai Fujikura and a live performance of David Sylvian and Holger Czukay´s "Plight and Premonition", with Sylvian, Erik Honoré, Jan Bang, John Tilbury, Philip Jeck, Arve Henriksen and Eivind Aarset on stage. Beautiful music all the way, with fantastic sound and lights as added value (photo of Tilbury/Parker/Russell/Lee). I must admit I would have enjoyed some kick of energy in there for a change, but as Han Bennink says when he goes off rock drumming at jazz festivals: "Sorry, wrong festival!"

Jan Bang, Erik Honoré and Sidsel Endresen remixed Dai Fujikura´s music from the first concert of the evening. Very nice, and not too long either. Quite a lot of artists here do not seem to agree that it is smart to leave the audience wanting more.

Since we were told that some of the audience were quite distracted by amateur photographers at the festival, let me just put it straight, that my photos were taken in a very discrete manner, from the side of the hall or well hidden among the professionals. And hey, no shutter sounds from me!
No members of the audience were hurt to make this blog post.

Nils Petter Molvær videos

Expect a new Nils Petter Molvær album this autumn, produced by Stian Westerhus. On the first video here we see Nils Petter Molvær Trio at Jazz in Marciac (August 2011), with Stian Westerhus and Erland Dahlen. On the other one Molvær is playing in a duo with Jan Bang in Ostrava (July 2011) (look for more clips on YouTube).

PUNKT 2011

David Sylvian is going to be artist in residence at the Punkt festival in Kristiansand (Norway) 1 - 3 September!
There will be an audiovusual installation ("Uncommon Deities"), a live performance of "Plight and Premonition", and concerts curated by Sylvian. Artists mentioned: Arve Henriksen, Philip Jeck, Jan Bang, Evan Parker, Koboku Senju, Sidsel Endresen and more!

Expect more from this festival in the blog. My pictures from PUNKT 2010 are posted on Flickr.

Avant Art Festival

The Avant Art Festival in Poland seems to have been a great festival. Here you get Maja Ratkje and Arve Henriksen/Jan Bang,  but check out OffonOff, Stian Westerhus and Terje Isungset, Jono El Grande  and Puma too (or perhaps not, if you are a HiFi freak).

…AND POPPIES FROM KANDAHAR

I´m a bit late with Jan Bang´s "...And Poppies From Kandahar" (Samadhisound, May 2010), but I promise you, it has been on heavy rotation on my Ipod this summer.
It is a fantastic album, and deserves a place on the shelf among albums by the musicians on the album, like Nils Petter Molvær, Arve Henriksen, Sidsel Endresen and Jon Hassell! These are all artists he has worked with earlier too.

I just steal this from Samadhisound´s site on how Bang is composing : “As I often do, I started working on instrumentals which I then presented to the musician that I thought might benefit the track – not unlike the process of making the Cartography album with Arve. … I knew I wanted to write music that had references to my influences, but where I could use my own dialect. I wanted to work with both composition and improvisation on an equal level – using contrasting forms, different dimensions, randomness, parallel directions which weren’t necessarily meant to express anything specific other than to work within the frame of the piece itself.”

David Sylvian wrote the titles for the music, and they make a story for the soundtrack:

1. The Drug Mule
2. Self Injury
3. The Midwife’s Dilemma
4. Passport Control
5. Who Grooms The Child?
6. Heidegger’s Silence
7. Abdication And Coronation
8. Suicide Bomber
9. Taking Life
10. Ululations
11. Exile From Paradise