Meditative tenor, sober piano, hip soul and driving tough jazz players: Photos -

This year’s Friday at Moldejazz has calmed down a bit. Not in the sense that you can calm down and enjoy subdued music, preferably with a glass in your hand and with good friends. But more that there is actually a limited number of concerts that you feel it is right to frequent on this day.

And for us, who primarily go for the jazz concerts, there was actually quite a bit of downtime on this day. But maybe it was good for both body and soul, like at the end of the week.

The city is seething and boiling with life, and after I have waited back in my room in the “collective” at Hotel Molde well after midnight, I really wonder how many bad versions it is possible to make of the local band De Derres’ “Jenter som kommer”. Because here from the top of the hotel, versions that I am convinced Jo Nesbø and the others in the band would never have accepted are regularly heard.

But let’s take the day from the beginning. I started, as usual, at the Festival Academy, where Audun Vinger, in his usual way, eased us safely, and with just the right amount of humorous flair, through a nice conversation with the new festival director, Linda Melsom, who at the end revealed that saxophonist Marius Neset will be Artist in Residence in 2027.

This was a choice that seems to have been well received in Storgata in the city, plus at the many meeting places around the tables at Alexandra, at Die Tankstelle, at Café Kurt, in the backyard at Fuzzy, at Klagen and at Rød. And one thing is for sure: Marius Neset will be on considerably more stages than Esperanza Spalding has been this year.

After this, there was a warm and nice conversation with vocalist and saxophonist Sissel Vera Pettersen, who told us about her musical life from Trøndelag via Copenhagen and back.

Meditative and repetitive Shabaka

The first concert of the day for the undersigned was with the British saxophonist and flutist Shabaka Hutchings. He is known from bands such as Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors, and has taken up the legacy of both John Coltrane and his descendants, but perhaps most of all the spiritual saxophone playing of Pharoah Sanders. I have heard him before in a quartet, and then I really liked his spiritual approach to the music and his “dark” and rich tone on the saxophone.

He came to Molde with electronics, tenor saxophone and flutes, and we had a relatively meditative and repetitive session, where there was really no particular development in the playing during the time I was present. I love the tone he has on the tenor saxophone, and his spiritual approach. And since my relationship with both Coltrane and Sanders is relatively good, I should have loved this concert. But unfortunately: It was terribly stagnant. And if there is one thing jazz should not be, it is stagnant. So, unfortunately Shabaka – bring a great band with you next time, who can challenge you and “whip” you to perform more than we got at this concert at Storyville.

Soul a la Sofie O

Sofie O, or Sofie Tollefsbø, as she is called in “real life” is known as the frontwoman of the band Fieh, and for those of us with the diagnosis “jazz” in our GP’s records, she has, if possible, been even more noticed as the vocalist in the brilliant Andreas Roysum Ensemble, who, among other things, ended their concert at Storyville last year by taking the overjoyed audience out onto the roof and ending it there. She has long been a prominent voice in Norwegian popular music, and her soulful voice may suggest that her innermost genes, in fact, stem considerably more from the American South than from Eina on “gærne sia ta Mjøsa”.

In her solo project, where she is both a vocalist and bassist, she collaborates with, as far as I could see and read afterwards, drummer Ola Øverby, keyboardist Kai von der Lippe and guitarist Johannes Nøkling Aagaard. These are musicians who have been part of her band for a long time, and contribute greatly to the band having gained a whole and a cohesive sound, where the main character herself can “soar” at the top in full confidence that “the competition is going” as it should.

Tollefsbø (or Sofie O) created an almost ecstatic and electric atmosphere inside Die Tankstelle, which is exactly the right venue for this music. She gets the relatively young audience jumping and dancing, and even one of jazznytt’s editors moved, somewhat rhythmically, in the back rows of the audience, as if he were about to enter class seven at Svaes Dance School. A solid soul evening for the youth, who probably had to go through a few rounds to choose and prioritize between Datarock and Magnus Berg in Alexandraparken, and Sofie O inside the cramped Die Tankstelle. And, without disparagement to either Datarock or Magnus Berg, I think those who prioritized the old gas station made the right choice.

Strøken Piano Trio

Pianist Espen Berg is originally from Hamar, but has spent much of his adult life in Trondheim, where he received his jazz education and where he started a family. Over the years, he has released a number of fine piano albums, both solo and in trio, and he has collaborated with a number of other musicians, such as a duo with vocalist Silje Nergaard, with Hildegunn Øiseth, Daniel Herskedal, Seamus Blake, Herborg Kråkevik, Marius Neset and the Trondheim jazz orchestra.

In Espen Berg Trio he collaborates with Faroese bassist Bárður Reinert Poulsen and drummer Simon Albertsen, who, after studying in Copenhagen, has settled across the bridge, in Malmö. These three recently released the album Entropies on the newly started Svale Records. And it was from this album that most of the music was taken.

The release has received good reviews, including on salt peanuts*, where Berg’s personal playing, Poulsen’s steady and fine bass playing, and, not least, Albertsen’s distinct, but at the same time “loose” drumming create an hour of excellent piano trio jazz where we can recognize inspirations from, among others, Brad Mehldau.

Judging by the response from an (almost) full Teatret Vårt, there were many at the festival who had missed exactly this type of music at this year’s festival. This is jazz as one used to encounter at Moldejazz in the past. A sober, delicious, beautiful and technically excellent concert, where one can just sit back and enjoy.

Resurrected jazzists without Grete Stitz

It’s been a while since we heard anything new from the collective Jaga Jazzist (main picture), this group of friends from the Vestfold region who took musical Norway and the world by storm a few years ago. It is still the sibling trio Horntvedt, with Martin on drums, percussion and programming, Lars on guitars, pedal steel, clarinets, saxophones, keyboards, synthesizer, vibraphone, piano and programming, and Line on tuba, alto horn, euphonium, flute and vocals who front this many-headed “troll”. In addition, the jazz players were, as before, occupied with Marcus Forsgren on guitar and vocals, Even Ormestad on bass, Erik Johannessen on trombone and vocals, Øystein Moen on synthesizer, clavinet and Hammond organ, and Andreas Mjøs on vibraphone. And it was clear that there were more than me who had missed the band on stage, because here there was a long queue at the entrance to Teatret Vårt, and, of course, a standing audience, which we in GGG (Gretne Gamle Gubber) do not particularly appreciate.

Martin Horntvedt said early in the concert that all that was to be played was newly written material, how much will be on a new album in 2027. But if that was the case, it was impossible for the undersigned to determine. For the music of this collective, is, and always has been, a driving symbiosis of rock energy, collective and tight playing and music that makes the dance foot move relatively freely.

In addition to the driving and tough music, the productions of the jazzists are always set up as if they were playing on one of the largest stages. We got excellent lighting and sound production and it seems like an important thing in the band’s concerts is that the audience should move and sweat. Something I felt the band achieved this late evening.

I once heard a story about this band. It was in the beginning, and a sound engineer had been hired to run the sound at one of the concerts. He didn’t know the band before, and when he came back from work and someone asked about the music, he replied that it was “a band with a turntable.” It’s been many years. Now Jaga Jazzist is so much more. This is proft at your fingertips, while at the same time it is loose and improvised and with an energy that could save half the country from the development of wind farms in the years to come. Tough, driving and extremely captivating!

Then it was night, the fifth day. The collective at Hotel Molde is about to fill up, and salt peanuts* is ready for the sixth and decisive set at Moldejazz, version 2026.