Tradjazz for advanced users։ the Norwegian bands that impressed the most at this year's Moldejazz։ Photos -

The last day of this year’s Moldejazz is over. And the concert offerings are only getting fewer and fewer as the weekend draws near.

But the highlight of the year came today, right after I had heard pianist Morten Gunnar Larsen talk about his life in music, and about his meeting with drummer Han Bennink – a meeting I would have liked to have heard.

It doesn’t get any better than this!

The somewhat “boxy” concert list today started with the 88-year-old German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach (main picture) and the “younger guard” with drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. And there just doesn’t get better music within the free improvisational realm than a meeting between these two! And for a far too poorly attended Teatret Vårt, we got three sequences, plus an encore, with improvised music in the continuation of Thelonious Monk, one will have to wait a very long time to experience it live!.

Alexander von Schlippenbach is one of Europe’s greatest free jazz legends. Since the 1960s, he has played with “everyone” of importance in the field, and today we were to hear him together with our biggest star in the field, Paal Nilssen-Love. It is believed that he is from Stavanger, but he was actually born at Molde Hospital, when his mother worked at Teatret Vårt.

And today, if you look at it a little bigger, the ring was closed. Nilssen-Love was back at Teatret Vårt.

The concert started with Schlippenbach playing with some scales on the piano, before Nilssen-Love came “sneaking” with his characteristic drumming, which admittedly is not always as “sneaking”. And from there on out this was a concert that surpassed everything else we had heard this week. Schlippenbach has a close relationship with the music of Thelonious Monk, and did not slip small hints at Monk’s compositions (Erling Aksdahl, who is an expert in the field, counted four Monk phrases, but I am convinced that there were considerably more). He has made records with the project Monk Casino, where the band performed all the compositions Monk had written, and I think I heard most of them that day, especially in the second sequence.

This was improvised music where the communication between the musicians was seamless. Even though the two don’t play together often, they know each other’s ideas and perspectives, and Nilssen-Love in particular was the great listener who, with an almost oversized drum set with several gongs, spiced up the piano playing in an almost magical way.

Seeing Schlippenbach enter the stage with a crutch and with a number of signs of old age, and then excelling as he did at the piano, was almost unbelievable. I last heard him at Voss jazz club two years ago, and was convinced that it was the last time I would have the opportunity to hear him, due to weakened health and old age. And then he comes to Molde and delivers a concert to Yatsy on the dice together with an extremely obvious Nilssen-Love, which is hereby voted Moldejazz 2026’s greatest concert experience! Done talking!

Tradjazz for advanced users

In the fjord from Molde lies the village of Kleive. In Molde, this place is often looked down upon, but that should end now. In fact, they have fostered a number of jazz musicians in most genres, and tonight I “stumbled” into what I thought was a concert with a completely ordinary trad band. But I was shamefully wrong!

Bech & Skeidsvoll New Orleans Band is a band that originates from the Skeidsvoll family. Here, the father Leiv Skeidsvoll has been the driving force behind creating a kind of family band, where we find three of his sons, pianist Isach Skeidsvoll, who is known for completely different jazz genres than traditional jazz, and his brother Lauritz Heitmann Skeidsvoll, who is in the same class, plus Peder who plays trumpet and flugelhorn. In addition, the band consists of trombonist Gunnar Bech, who has made a strong mark in the local jazz community in recent years, banjoist Frank Iversen, bassist Sindre Klykken and drummer Hans Petter Gyldenskog.

They had a record launch for the album they had previously recorded at Moldejazz, and Die Tankstelle was packed with music-hungry people of all ages and weight classes. Of course, some family and friends, but also a number of “professionals” and audiences who usually listen to completely different forms of jazz. I am one of those who stopped listening to traditional jazz several decades ago, but I was fascinated and enjoyed the time I had with the band.

They play, mainly, traditional jazz, but in a slightly “crooked” way, which could just as well have been done by a modern ensemble. And when Isach Skeidsvoll, in a solo, couldn’t hold on any longer, they broke out into a fierce free jazz sequence that made the band something entirely their own.

Most of the musicians contributed excellent solos, where most of it was kept within the “family” with father, Lauritz and Isach as the main soloists. And, Isach and Lauritz in particular helped lift the band to great heights. An excellent, fun and nice concert in the early evening, which lifted the somewhat quiet town to new heights (even though there was a football match at the same time between Molde and Brann, where the visitors from Bergen won 2-1), which usually makes most of the inhabitants of the town relatively depressed, but that quickly disappeared when they entered Die Tankstelle. A perfect end to the evenings at Die Tankstelle (which is in danger of being removed from the face of the earth due to the gas station being demolished in favor of the new center for jazz that is being worked on in the city.

Synthesizer on vibraphone

Then it was ready for my last concert at this year’s Moldejazz. I had chosen the concert at Storyville, with the Los Angeles-based vibraphonist Sasha Berliner and her Arts & Sciences, and dropped the church concert with tuba player Daniel Herskedal, which I quickly discovered was the wrong choice. Because rumors from those who had been there could tell of a brilliant solo concert in Molde Cathedral.

It is not too often that vibraphonists are served as bandleaders at Norwegian jazz festivals. This time they had brought over a band with “rock feet” with a young, vibraphonist who has been rumored to be famous, if you believe the program. But a program text is pure advertising that you have to take with a pinch of salt.

Sasha Berliner is winner of the “DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Vibraphonist” and she has already made her mark on some of the most important stages internationally. She has collaborated with names such as Christian McBride, Tyshawn Sorey, Marcus Gilmore and Cécile McLorin Salvant, while also moving seamlessly into more genre-crossing collaborations with artists such as The Free Nationals and Flea.

The program text states that “with three critically acclaimed albums – Azalea (2019), Onyx (2022) and Fantome (2025) – she has developed a distinctive musical language in which the vibraphone is at the center of a rich and expansive soundscape. The music combines acoustic and electric elements, with references to Miles Davis’ electric period and a clear foundation in both improvisation and composition. At the same time, she opens up to impulses from pop, rock and funk, and creates an expression that is both complex, accessible and deeply personal.

She is known for her technical precision and powerful expression, but also for her ability to think new things about the instrument. Through her work with electronic vibraphone solutions and new band projects she continues to expand the framework for what the vibraphone can be in modern jazz”.

Unfortunately, I was lured by this review, because during my time at Storyville, we were treated to electronic vibraphone, which sounded like a synthesizer, and one of the songs Bobby Hutcherson became famous for, with a rather corny and funky jazz-rock accompaniment.

But Berliner is a perfectly fine vibraphonist who creates new music with his special means. But with a relatively boring accompaniment as an accessory.

Actually, I thought this concert, in one way or another, was an example of some of the concerts at Moldejazz this year, where the festival had selected award-winning and critically acclaimed artists who delivered relatively uninspired sets on the stages here in town. Admittedly, the highlights were relatively close in line throughout the week, but with the weakest links with some of the artists we didn’t know before, and who I had hoped would surprise and give me some new, exciting names on the block.

Should one, on death and life, definitely evaluate, then it was, for me, the Norwegian bands that impressed the most at this year’s Moldejazz.

Next year, Marius Neset will be featured as Artist in Residence, and then there will probably be intense saxophone playing 24/7. Then we’ll see what surprises the booking department has in store for all the other concerts. As of now, the festival does not have an overview of pluses or minuses in the accounts, but I hope they come out of it well, and that we can look forward to week 29 in 2027 as well.