Håkon Kornstad Tenor Battle at Nattjazz 2014

Here is a video of Håkon Kornstad Tenor Battle at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen in May 2014.

See also a video from a church concert at Nattjazz 2012 right here.

Musicians:
Håkon Kornstad (sax, voc)
Per Zanussi (b)
Øyvind Skarbø (dr)
Sigbjørn Apeland (org)

Honeyleap

Meet Honeyleap, another Swedish-Norwegian cooperation you might want to check out.
The band is Fredrik Ljungkvist (sax, clarinet), Klas Nevrin (piano), Per Zanussi (bass) and Øyvind Skarbø (drums), and their new eponymous album is out on Øyvind Jazzforum.
Since Klas Nevrin is new to me, he is the only one of the musicians who gets his own link.

The music on the album is composed by Ljungkvist, Zanussi and Nevrin, and you get a fine mix of pretty hard swinging jazz and something close to contemporary classical. I was wondering how much was composed and how much was improvised during the record release concert in Bergen earlier this week, but Klas Nevrin has at least written liner notes on the pleasures and hard work of improvising.

"Honeyleap" should be available in iTunes and eMusic, and head on over to SoundCloud for some more info. I got my CD at the concert, with fake tattoo and all!

Watch and listen to "Ebony Swing" (Ljungkvist), recorded at Bergen Jazzforum 20 February 2013.

Tenor Battle at Øyafestivalen

I have mentioned Håkon Kornstad´s jazz and opera project several times in the blog (recently from Moldejazz), and here he is again with Tenor Battle at the Øya Festival (Oslo) this summer, doing "Marechiare" by Tosti (1886).

Håkon Kornstad (sax, voc), Sigbjørn Apeland (org), Øyvind Skarbø (dr) and Per Zanussi (b).

Moldejazz - Thursday

I guess I should have attended Antony & The Johnsons outdoor concert here in Molde, but I have to admit I´m not very fond of outdoor concerts. I read the local Molde newspaper this morning, and it seems like Antony thought it was so nice here, that it was almost like living in Smurf country. He sure knows how to flatter people!

So, instead of freezing outdoors (summer only in theory here), I heard two completely different concerts, attended by what seemed like two completely different audiences (even if a few of us were both places).

More than 40 years old Globe Unity Orchestra were eleven musicians on stage (and what musicians!), and were greeted by an audience of around fifty people (some more came later) in a quite big venue. They played damned good, hot (!) free jazz, gave us some fantastic solos and the audience was totally quiet, except for the final applause!

These musicians really deserved some serious shout outs and whistling:
Evan Parker, Gerd Dudek, Henrik Walsdorff, (sax, clar), Rudi Mahall (b clar), Axel Dørner, Jean-Luc Capozzo, (tp), Nils Wogram, Christoph Thewes (tb), Alexander von Schlippenbach (p), Paul Lytton, Paul Lovens (dr).

Later in the evening there was a packed house for Håkon Kornstad and Tenor Battle.
Sax player and opera student Kornstad and his three musketeers, Sigbjørn Apeland (harmonium), Per Zanussi (b, saw) and Øyvind Skarbø (dr) really had the audience smiling.
I heard them do a great concert in a church in Bergen during the Nattjazz festival in May, but a club audience like this was even more suitable. Fantastic!

Håkon Kornstad Tenor Battle

Around midnight Monday Håkon Kornstad Tenor Battle played in the Korskirken church at the Nattjazz festival in Bergen.

Kornstad, both a veteran sax player and a first year opera student, has started to mix jazz and opera, with his new band Tenor Battle.
In jazz a "tenor battle" is a more or less friendly "fight" between to sax players, but I guess here it´s the sax player and the singer who fight (?) each other?

The band fit Kornstad in a perfect way, with Sigbjørn Apeland (introduced as the saviour of the harmonium), Per Zanussi (great bass and saw player) and Øyvind Skarbø (both discreetly adding color to the band sound, and throwing flashy backhand strokes to the floor).

A truly great evening in church!

I haven´t got the faintest idea what opera Kornstad is singing from here. Anyone else? Zanussi had just finished a saw solo when the video starts, but I guess sawing was not an issue in the original opera?

Zanussi 13 Live

Moserobie already released "Zanussi Five" (2005), "Alborado" (2006) and "Ghost Dance" (2010) by bassist Per Zanussi´s band Zanussi Five (a previous blog post here). Now they are raising the stakes with Zanussi 13! This is a live recording from Nasjonal Jazzscene (Oslo January 2011), and if you want a genre to describe it, try big band free jazz, or something like that. We get Ornette Coleman´s ("Street Woman") and Fela Kuti´s ("Johnny Just Drop"), and the rest are compositions by Per Zanussi.

This is great stuff! Listen to a couple of tunes over here:
Zanussi 13 Live-Body and Zeuhl
Zanussi 13 Live - Amorous Parade

And just check out the list of musicians before you run on over to your favorite music shop:

Eirik Hegdal – Baritone sax / clarinet
Klaus Holm – Alto- and baritone sax / clarinet
Mikko Innanen – Alto sax
Per Oddvar Johansen – Drums
Martin Kuchen – Alto sax
Jonas Kullhammar – Tenor sax
Jørgen Mathisen – Tenor sax/clarinet
Kjetil Møster – Tenor sax, clarinet and percussion
Gard Nilssen – Drums
Rolf-Erik Nystrøm – Alto sax
Stian Westerhus – Guitar
Per Zanussi – Double bass