Knut Johan Bratland Kristiansen, or KK as he is known in the jazz community, was born on April 14, 1946, and will turn 80 in two days.
He is the closest thing you can get to a jazz legend in Bergen, which he has lived and breathed for many, many years. He is a pianist and composer, and has always been strongly inspired by pianist Thelonious Monk.
He is also inspired by Latin jazz, which we, among other things, have heard in the band Son Mu, which he led for many years.
In his hometown, he played early on with vocalist Mette Rongved and bassist Sture Janson, and he established several bands, including Bergen Big Band.
He composed for Den Nationale Scene, held a number of courses and seminars, and for this he received the Hordaland County Cultural Prize in 1978.
In 1983 he received the Buddy Prize, among other things for his contribution to world music through The Gambian/Norwegian Friendship Orchestra (record release on the Odin label in 1982), the Latin jazz band Son Mu who released the album Son Mu (1985) and was the driving force in the band Night and Day. And in 1990 he received the Vossa Jazz Prize.
He led the “Monk Memorial” series at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in 1987 and at Nattjazz in Bergen in 1989, as well as the record and concert project Monk Moods.
He performed the performance “A tribute to Monk” at the Oslo Jazz Festival in 1997. And last year he released the album Volum on Jazzland Recordings, with his “young” quartet consisting of himself on piano, saxophonist Aksel Røed, bassist Magne Thormodsæter and drummer Sigurd Steinkopf, who were all at the concert this afternoon, and delivered great performances on each of their instruments.
This Sunday, the Bergen Big Band, together with the Vestnorsk jazz center and the Bergen jazz forum, gathered musicians and the audience for a concert in honor of KK.
The invitation states, among other things, that “The concert at Sardinen USF will be a tribute to KK and his career over 60 years, with a repertoire that will represent his musical diversity and breadth – from Monk to Kuria, from Latin jazz to melodic quartet format, etc. etc. In addition to the Bergen Big Band, a couple of musical guests are also invited – including
Linda Farestveit from the band Night and Day, who had a hit with “The song of you” in the 80s. Now Farestveit had to take a break due to throat problems, but instead they had, at short notice, brought in the young vocalist Sofia Guidi as an excellent replacement.
So it was a full club, even though the time of the tribute was in the middle of the day, this Sunday, when spring had really come to Bergen.
From the first song, which was a song based on “What Is This Thing Called Love?” to the last note of KK’s tribute to the person he believed was the one who had held the Bergen Big Band together, saxophonist Olav Dale, and the song “Klaffen”, this was an excellent celebration of KK.
The Bergen Big Band and he performed a good selection of KK’s compositions from the “morning of time” in the 1960s, via the band Night and Day, KK’s period where he worked with church music, excerpts from the Kuria Suite piece that he wrote for Bergen Big Bang and Vossa Jazz in 2012, a bit of Italian madrigal and to the extremely fresh ending.
Much of the music was arranged by Bergen Big Band’s musical director Michael Barnes, and the arrangement was done in a way that made the big band a musical “wonder package” with impeccable ensemble playing and outstanding soloists.
I could have picked out many of the soloists, but next to the “usual” soloists, I especially noticed vocalist Sofia Guidi and vibraphonist Rasmus Vik Lagerberg as big surprises.
The band sounded great the whole way, and with KK’s Monk-inspired piano playing in front of a hard-working big band, this was a party concert that included both “Happy Birthday to You” in a lovely blues version and standing ovation.
This was a concert where the jubilant person was to be the focus. And he did that to a great extent. But he himself made this an equally pleasant and tough presentation of the Bergen Big Band, which made this a brilliant celebration.
But what happened at the following jam session, others must “gossip” about. By then, your frightened ones were on their way home safely up the mountains.
