Solveig Slettahjell - Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian Woods (Live) (2014) [Hi-Res]

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, with the magical trio of pianists Michael Wollny, Leszek Mozdzer and Iiro Rantala, and this fourth evening entitled 'Norwegian Woods'. The live recording shows as if under a magnifying glass, not only as described above, how a country with only five million inhabitants was able to become the epicentre of European Jazz, and dispose over one of the most exciting Jazz scenes in the world - and that far away from the established centres of Jazz. One of the reasons is the interweaving of their own roots: Norwegian folk music and classical works ranging from Johann Nesenus to Edvard Grieg. This wasn't the intention at first, but the land of the fjords was simply too far off the beaten tour track of American Jazz musicians, and that ended up helping to develop an own vocabulary - the typical 'Nordic sound' as was made popular by Jan Garbarek et. al. in the early seventies, and that is today something like the DNA of Norwegian Jazz.

Solveig Slettahjell, vocals
Bugge Wesseltoft, piano, synths (except 2, 5)
Knut Reiersrud, guitars, harmonica

In The Country:
Morten Qvenild, piano, synths (except 4-6)
Roger Arntzen, bass
Pål Hausken, drums

Tracklist:
01. Bugge Wesseltoft - Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige RO (Live) (8:42)
02. Knut Reiersrud - Can I Come Home Now (Live) (7:14)
03. Bugge Wesseltoft - Have a Little Faith in Me (Live) (7:06)
04. Bugge Wesseltoft - Chicken Feathers (Live) (6:34)
05. Knut Reiersrud - Jargo (Live) (3:35)
06. Bugge Wesseltoft - Sæterjentens Søndag (Live) (8:35)
07. Bugge Wesseltoft - Ned I Vester Soli Glader (Live) (3:57)
08. Bugge Wesseltoft - Take It With Me (Live) (8:30)
09. Bugge Wesseltoft - Nobody's Fault but Mine (Live) (7:44)