Solveig Slettahjell - Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian Woods (Live) '2014

Tracks list

A blues guitar introduces the melody, restrained, elegiac and yet full of
energy. A clear, female voice takes over, its power potentiated by its uncanny
serenity. A piano gathers together the theme one more time before all of them,
joined by an additional trio, take it through a mightily dynamic loop until it
tapers out almost to nothing in the end. Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige Ro is
the name of the old Norwegian church song that Knut Reiersrud, Solveig
Slettahjell, Bugge Wesseltoft and In The Country transform so fascinatingly into
a modern Nordic hymn in the sold-out Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin
Philharmonie. It was another one of those magic moments that the Jazz at Berlin
Philharmonic series so reliably produces. Founded in 2012 and curated by Siggi
Loch, the idea was to craft inimitable evenings by means of thematic
concentration, but most of all with stirring, often first-time encounters
between outstanding musicians. Such were the first concert in December 2012,
with the magical trio of pianists Michael Wollny, Leszek Mozdzer and Iiro
Rantala, and this fourth evening entitled Norwegian Woods. The live recording
shows as if under a magnifying glass, not only as described above, how a country
with only five million inhabitants was able to become the epicentre of European
Jazz, and dispose over one of the most exciting Jazz scenes in the world - and
that far away from the established centres of Jazz. One of the reasons is the
interweaving of their own roots: Norwegian folk music and classical works
ranging from Johann Nesenus to Edvard Grieg. This wasnt the intention at first,
but the land of the fjords was simply too far off the beaten tour track of
American Jazz musicians, and that ended up helping to develop an own vocabulary
- the typical Nordic sound as was made popular by Jan Garbarek et. al. in the
early seventies, and that is today something like the DNA of Norwegian Jazz.

Solveig Slettahjell, vocals
Bugge Wesseltoft, piano, synths (except 2, 5)
Knut Reiersrud, guitars, harmonica

In The Country:
Morten Qvenild, piano, synths (except 4-6)
Roger Arntzen, bass
PÃ¥l Hausken, drums

Tracklist:
01. Bugge Wesseltoft - Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige RO (Live) (8:42)
02. Knut Reiersrud - Can I Come Home Now (Live) (7:14)
03. Bugge Wesseltoft - Have a Little Faith in Me (Live) (7:06)
04. Bugge Wesseltoft - Chicken Feathers (Live) (6:34)
05. Knut Reiersrud - Jargo (Live) (3:35)
06. Bugge Wesseltoft - Sæterjentens Søndag (Live) (8:35)
07. Bugge Wesseltoft - Ned I Vester Soli Glader (Live) (3:57)
08. Bugge Wesseltoft - Take It With Me (Live) (8:30)
09. Bugge Wesseltoft - Nobodys Fault but Mine (Live) (7:44)

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