VA - Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian Woods (2014)

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, also available on CD, with the magical trio of pianists Michael Wollny, Leszek Mozdzer and Iiro Rantala, and this fourth evening entitled 'Norwegian Woods'. The recordings were initially designed to be documentations for radio, but the musical result was so convincing that the artists themselves wanted to publish it on CD. Norwegian individualists present themselves as a closeknit group at this singular fourth 'Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic'; and their country as still the spearhead of European jazz, which has long since emancipated itself from the motherland USA and launched decisive developments of its own.