Honest John - International Breakthrough (2017)

Something like the band Honest John could only come from the Scandinavian scene. It seems that only the musicians born and living in the top of the world have the vision, the ingenuity and the guts to combine elements nobody else would dare to, with the preconceived idea that it wouldn’t work, and further more making things in such a way that everything seems natural and just the continuation of old procedures. You certainly noticed that before: the results use to be new and different, qualities that you only achieve taking risks and walking in no man’s land. The Norwegian and Swedish quintet formed by some of the most important musicians of the creative jazz and free improvised circuits in those two countries (we can hear them in groups like Sheriffs of Nothingness, Cortex, Large Unit, Ballrogg and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra) gathered inspiration in the most improbable sources, namely Dutch free jazz (the one established around Misha Mengelberg and the legendary Instant Composers Pool), Brazilian rooted styles like bossa nova and samba and – even more surprisingly – the contemporary classical music of Webern and Sciarrino. That’s what makes this a highly original project, combining a special richness of materials and language to another Scandinavian particularity: the energetic way everything is delivered to us.