So we were there on the opening day of this year’s Night Jazz in Bergen, the 54th in a row. Some years we have been present throughout this ten-day festival, but since we did not get a “sponsored” room in the hostel this year, we had to travel up and down to “bydn” by train from Voss this year.
Therefore, we will not cover all the days of this year’s festival, but only bring a few excerpts from the festival. Festival director Jon Skjerdal gave a fiery speech in his opening about how well-off Nattjazz was, with great support from the city’s “funding” population, such as the Trond Moen Foundation, but it is clearly not enough for them to be able to cover a magazine that is, almost, the only one that covers such festivals with daily reports – every day.
I was more than happy that there was no bus for the train down from Voss that day. To be safe, I took a relatively early train down, so that I could experience a bit of the city life in the city, which was seething and boiling with people who were probably in the city center to witness the start of this year’s Bergen International Festival, which runs concurrently with Night Jazz, and which was the reason why Night Jazz was started 54 years ago. Night Jazz was supposed to be a counterbalance, and a kind of protest, against the bourgeois, classical festival. And even though today it is almost impossible to separate the Festival audience from those on their way to Night Jazz, it was probably easier in the early years.
Bergen and the people of Bergen are a separate people in Norway. They are almost fanatically interested in the city, and in a kind of inferiority complex, since they are not the largest city in Norway and the capital. They are fanatically interested in the local football team Brann, believe that the bow corps is one of the greatest things in Norwegian culture and that the city’s “national anthem” “Nystemten” is more important than the national anthem “Ja, vi elsker”.
They are loud and take up a lot of space, and I think they have the only taxi driver in the city who refuses to drive people from the east. But when the city is bathed in sunshine, it is actually quite pleasant to be in Bergen. You just have to fight for a seat at one of the city’s many outdoor restaurants on the way out to USF Verftet, the old sardine factory out in Nordnes, or you can find a seat at the outdoor seating at Kippers out at Verftet before you enter the festival.
When the festival opened yesterday, we had had the first sunny days in a very long time in Western Norway. But the sun did not show itself at all over the “village between the seven mountains” until it all got underway, when festival opener, State Secretary Trude Storheim, performed the ceremonial opening. On the contrary, it was bitterly cold, and with the opening concert in the new Hallen, the west wind practically blew into the audience, it became a hot affair.
New project with a large, local big band
The opening concert this year was with the local Bergen Big Band (BBB), one of the country’s leading, larger ensembles, which this year had saxophonist Kjetil Møster create a commissioned work for the big band. The project was characterized by the many and varied projects Møster has been involved in. The foundation is built by several of the great 1960s jazz musicians such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders, spiced with modern classical music and more popular musical trends from the 1970s.
In addition, Møster has toured Brazil several times in recent years, and has been fascinated and inspired by the incredibly diverse musical life that the country hosts. “The result is a magnificent and energetic journey through rhythmic and melodic passages – crowned by the shooting star Gabriela Garrubo’s fantastic voice”, as the program states.
Møster has made a name for himself in a number of contexts over the past 25 years. He has participated in well over 100 album releases, and has toured all over the world in all the shapes and colors that jazz bands can have. He also created the Tingingsverket for Vossajazz in 2025.
Today’s edition of Bergen Big Band consisted of Gabriela Garubo on vocals, the saxophone line-up with Michael Barnes, Heidi Kvelvane, Ole Jacob Hystad and Thomas Nøkling, the trumpet line-up with Benjamin Winther, Torstein Holmås, Lyder Røed and Børge Styve, trombonists Sindre Dalhaug, Håvard Sannes, Pål Roseth and Kristine Oppegård, guitarist Thomas Dahl, pianist Eivind Austad, vibraphonist Ivar Kolve, bassist Magne Thormodsæter and drummer Kenneth Kapstad, while Atle Sekkingstad controlled the sound, in addition to Kjetil Møster on tenor saxophone and percussion.
I have always had great sense and respect for Møster’s playing. So did this evening. He also writes good compositions, including a piece inspired by Brazilian Tom Zé, and we got many good solos when I managed to keep “King Winter” out of the lyrics. In addition to Møster’s excellent solo playing, I particularly noticed an alto saxophone solo from Heidi Kvelvane that contained most of what one would expect from a relatively young and creative musician (note the name).
But overall, I don’t think the commission was “set” properly. There was too much uncertainty, which all too often appears in such first performances. But give BBB and Møster some time to get the ensemble to “sit” and peel away the parts with the most “long straw”, and this will be an excellent project from BBB.
Innovation in the most creative
In Bergen, you don’t only have the Bergen Big Band as a large ensemble. The West Norwegian Jazz Center also runs the West Norwegian Youth Big Band plus the West Norwegian Jazz Ensemble (VJE). The latter works a bit like we have become accustomed to hearing from the Trondheim jazz orchestra, with project-based compositions, where the size of the band and what kind of music they perform change according to which musician, or musicians, have been commissioned to write for the band.
Therefore, a relatively small group came on stage up in the “loft” at Studio USF, with the project’s “leader”, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love (main photo), the most active Norwegian drummer in recent years, with about the same amount of experience as Kjetil Møster, and with a travel schedule that encompasses the whole world. He had just returned from a tour in Japan, to organize the Nesodden Jazz Festival, to go to Bergen for the final rehearsals, and he was looking forward to taking a couple of weeks of vacation after this premiere.
IN VJE in this project we find, from left to right, pianist Isach Skeidsvoll, saxophonist and clarinetist Aksel Røed, accordionist Sergej Tchirkov, flutist Daiyen Jone Castro, vocalist Alwynne Pritchard, saxophonist and clarinetist Heidi Kvelvane, bassist Jakob Bakkevoll, Nilssen-Love with his drums, percussion and gongs, and guitarist John Hegre. And the sound was superbly controlled by Ingar Hunskaar.
This is a composition that consists of 50/50 jazz musicians and contemporary musicians. Which made this concert a different and exceptionally nice experience. There are a number of musicians, especially in Scandinavia, who create new, “blended music” that unites several genres. And after the trio The Thing, with Nilssen-Love, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, had ended their collaboration as a trio, each of the musicians has continued to explore the energetic, innovative music in their own way.
Gustafsson with, among others, Fire! And the mammoth ensemble Fire! Orchestra, Håker Flaten with, among others, the band (Knarr), and Nilssen-Love with a number of more or less spontaneous ensembles in large and small formats, from Large Unit and Cirkus, to the collaboration we were to experience the premiere of this Friday.
From start to finish, this was an incredibly creative and exciting performance. Nilssen-Love had given ample space to contemporary musicians, with vocalist Pritchard as a central player. She uses her voice much like we hear the two Dutchmen Jaap Blonk and Greetje Bijma and the British Phil Minton. That is, the vocals are used in relatively different ways than what one is used to from regular vocalists.
There is snarling, screaming, whispering and “babble” depending on what the other musicians are doing. Here, ample space is given to Kvelvane (busy lady this evening) and Røed’s saxophones and, not least, Castro’s excellent flute playing.
The rhythm is kept well in place by conductor Nilssen-Love, where he “throws in” both Skeidsvoll’s incredibly creative and fine piano playing and, not least, Bekkevoll’s bass playing. He is a clear heir to Håker Flaten with his energetic “attacks” on the bass, which helped to keep the band together, while at the same time providing excellent input to the others. And on the far left, Hegre added his small but important guitar and electronic inputs that formed a kind of basis for the whole thing.
In one part, Nilssen-Love was a kind of “conductor” where he gave messages, in the form of colored posters to the musicians with short messages like “Stop”, “Start” and “Fuck Trump”, which was a message to just “keep going”. Eventually, Pritchard took over, and it almost counted with messages to the musicians. Extremely enjoyable!
This project by Nilssen-Love and VJE, was, despite the short rehearsal, a wonderful mixture of the free and the determined. I felt that the music had a basis in Nilssen-Love’s many travels, and we got both Brazilian, Ethiopian and South African sequences mixed with the conductor’s own ability to get improvising jazz musicians to merge into a kind of unity with the musicians who, for the most part, are within contemporary music. A brilliant concert that gave us another brilliant project led by Nilssen-Love. Don’t let this one concert stop you!
Heavy solo guitar
For many years, the American guitarist Ava Mendoza has been one of the undersigned’s favorites. I heard her in concert for the first time at Vossa Jazz three years ago, when she played with bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver.
A concert that still sticks in my mind. She has played with “everyone” within the American free jazz scene, and her solo concerts have long been rumored. But she is still a relatively unknown name on the Norwegian jazz scene, even though she said that she had taken a DNA test and found out that she was 8% Scandinavian.
We got music from her two latest solo albums, and for those who prefer rock to the “slick” jazz guitar, this was a great moment. In her improvisations, we could hear verses and ideas from more or less well-known songs from rock history, where I, who am not completely up to date on well-known and unknown songs from rock, at least recognized a longer, relatively heavy, version of “Goodnight Irene”.
Mendoza is a brilliant guitarist, and in her solo concerts, she layers upon layers of tones, using a rich arsenal of pedals, which often end up in relatively fierce rock done in a modern jazz style. And even though there were certainly many who, perhaps, thought this was “a bit much”, the guitar nerds were more than satisfied.
Then we caught the last train home where, once again, Bergen station appeared to be the sad place it is. Now the railway authorities and the Bergen municipality must take solid steps and make Bergen station a livable place. Because if Bergen is to get a good reputation from tourists and others who arrive (or travel from the city), something drastic must be done!
