Nordic Jazz Quintet - 1975 - Nordjazz

Nordic Jazz Quintet

1975

Nordjazz

01. Nordjazz 20:59

02. Hysterical 10:39

03. Silvana 8:14

Bass – Kjell Jansson

Drums – Petur Östlund

Flute, Tenor Saxophone – Knut Riisnæs

Guitar – Jukka Tolonen

Piano – Ole Kock Hansen

Recorded 8.10.1974.

The band was mentioned in connection with our Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisa expedition. This quintet made one legit LP in 1975 with 3 long tracks, and I won't repeat my lack of patience with those. Note that the band did include the famed guitarist Jukka Tolonen who appeared in a few of the Pop Liisa / Jazz Liisas, and the quintet as well in the same year recorded for that radio series. He's rounded out here by bassist Kjell Jansson, percussionist Petur Östlund, flute and sax player Knut Riisnæs and pianist Ole Kock Hansen.

In fact, the long track on side a was played at least partly on the jazz liisa a side of things too. Here on the official 1975 released LP, the "Nordjazz Suite" includes only a few minutes of composed music, three at the beginning and three more at the end, with the remainder a long and boring series of improvisations, so if they are attempting to represent Scandinavia as boring, they've got me convinced. Specifically, there's a wonderful fusionary flute intro with ascending electric piano chords followed by some quick improvs, then, as if they were too excited to get back to noodling, or too stoned to realize they had to play a song, there are more and more drawn out improvs with bass for 4 minutes, a wailing sax for 4 more, a meanderingly aimless guitar like a drunkard's walk for another 4 and then the absolute abysmal torture of a several minute long percussion-only solo including a bunch of irritating grade-school triangles I wish I could have torn from his hands. Finally then an acoustic piano returns to save the day to close out the song with a more tender ballad. And that's the first side. The other two tracks were written by Tolonen and are altogether not too bad,

Nordjazz Quintet - 2017 - Jazz-Liisa 14

Nordjazz Quintet

2017

Jazz-Liisa 14

01. Nordjazz Suite, Pt. 1 9:17

02. Havana Two 14:35

03. Arancel A Pagar 16:32

Double Bass – Kjell Jansson

Drums, Percussion – Pétur Östlund

Electric Guitar – Nils Petter Nyrén

Electric Piano – Ole Kock Hansen

Flute – Pekka Pöyry (tracks: A1)

Soprano Saxophone – Pekka Pöyry

Clear vinyl, limited to 100 pieces

Live Broadcast on Channel 2,

Wednesday, March 19th, 1975, 8 PM to 8.40 PM.

Produced By Yle, Hoster By Matti Konttinen.

Great performance by the Nordjazz Quintet -- a cool mixed electric/acoustic combo that features sax and flute from Pekka Poyry, guitar from Nils Petter Nyren, keyboards from Ole Kock Nahsen, bass from Kjell Jansson, and drums from Petur Ostlund -- a combo who work on long tracks that are a nice extrapolation of some of the fusion modes explored by the Love Records label during the same time! The tunes here get especially soulful in the longer stretches -- especially when Poyry's playing soprano sax.

Mirage - 1977 - Now You See It

Mirage

1977

Now You See It

01. King's Heads

02. Always Leaving

03. Time Less Words

04. Elephants' Tales

05. Ballade

06. Underneath The Arches And Beyond

Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Guitar [Tenor] – Brian Godding

Drums, Percussion – Dave Sheen

Electric Bass, Double Bass [String Bass] – Steve Cook

Saxophone, Flute – George Khan

The short-lived Jazz-Rock Fusion group Mirage is an excellent example of the incredible high level of music created in Britain in the 1970s. Co-led by two great instrumentalist and composers: saxophonist George Khan and guitarist Brian Godding, they managed to record just one album, which was originally released on the obscure, but visionary Norwegian Compendium label (along with some other superb albums), which unfortunately folded shortly after this album was released. The group also included bassist Steve Cook and drummer Dave Sheen on permanent basis, but was often expanded to a sextet with the addition of Geoff Castle on keyboards and John Mitchell on percussion. The group played music composed by Khan and Godding, which was a typical British Fusion, somewhat similar to what the many Canterbury groups (Hatfield And The North, National Health) were doing at the time, with strong melodic lines and lengthy improvisations. Godding was of course one of the best British guitarists, sadly much under-appreciated and respected mostly among his peers. This most welcome reissue expands the original album by adding two long jam-like tracks recorded live, which give an excellent glimpse as to how the group (in its sextet form) sounded on stage. Brilliant stuff, from start to finish and a must to all Fusion-heads.

Saluki - 1976 - Saluki

Saluki

1976

Saluki

01. Come Down 5:18

02. Autumn 5:53

03. The Awakening 3:45

04. Love To The Sun 9:30

05. Uranus In Cancer 6:26

06. Fantasy Suns 1:49

CD Bonus tracks:

07. Hidden Path III 10:40

08. Take The Road Across The Bridge 7:20

Keyboards, Vocals – Kjell Rønningen

Trombone – Bjørn Jenssen

Vocals, Bass – Ginnar Egon Jahr

Vocals, Guitar, Arranged By [Horns], Producer – Freddy Dahl

Vocals, Saxophone, Percussion – Peter Symington

Recorded at the Basement, October 1976

Compendium Records

Wow. These guys cover a wide range of styles from funk, to fusion, to jazz-rock, to prog. It probably helps to explain why they didn't go anywhere commercially; me and 7 other guys were their target audience (well, there's that and then there's the issue of international distribution from Norway). And the album cover probably didn't help their exposure either, as it looks like something you'd associate with 1976 guitar bands (AOR/metal), not a horn band. However the redheaded Djinn he's conjured up is quite nice, I'll take one too.

Vanessa - 1976 - Black And White

Vanessa

1976 

Black And White

01. Sun Walk 10:12

02. Summer Poem 12:16

03. Street Talk 3:26

04. Fragmomentum 17:32

Bass, Effects – Harald Salater

Drums – Thorsten Dulsrud

Piano, Synthesizer, Voice – Frode Holm

Saxophone, Flute, Alto Clarinet, Guitar – Svend Undseth

Existing somewhere between the post-psychedelic period of Soft Machine and the electric funk of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Black And White, the 1976 album from Norway’s Vanessa is without question a formidable beast of a jazz-rock record. A potent brew of sonic experimentation and pulsating off-kilter groove. Taking their name from the genus of Nymphalidae butterfly, Vanessa was founded in 1971 by saxophonist Svend Undseth and pianist Frode Holm, the founder of the Oslo record store turned imprint, Compendium Records. Unsurprisingly analogous to the music championed across the Compendium catalogue Black And White is clearly influenced by the UK Canterbury scene, highlighted by Compendium’s focus on the recordings of Soft Machine alumni Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean. Vanessa’s spirit also lies synonymous with the collective pedigree on the label’s roster including British progressive jazz stalwart Keith Tippett and Mirage (a UK group consisting of ex-members of Centipede and The Mike Westbrook Orchestra), together with the avant-rock collective Henry Cow and the experimental synthesiser-jazz of US ex-pat Joe Gallivan (together with Charles Austin).

Often dubbed the ‘Compendium house band’ owing to Holm’s association with the label, the Vanessa sound is inherently familiar yet undeniably original. Each of the album’s four long compositions are a meld of complex angular jazz laced with swirling electronic textures - furious rhythms that surge in intoxicating intensity before easing into fluid passages of soulful post-bop. The dichotomy of these styles plants the group firmly into radical new jazz territory alongside their Canterbury contemporaries. Despite their brief existence, the band, alongside the label left an indelible mark on Norwegian jazz-rock and the headier side of European progressive music at large.

A fantastically frenetic electric combo from the Norwegian scene of the 70s – one who clearly draw inspiration from some of the more dynamic prog acts on the UK scene from a few years before, but who deliver the goods with a vibe that really returns the instrumental energy to jazz overall! There's some very sharp reed work on the record – served up by Svend Undseth on saxes, flutes, and even a bit of clarinet – matched with really dynamic work on piano and keyboards from Frode Holm – a player with the best energy of the Scandia scene of the time. Thorsten Dulsrud plays some mighty heavy drums, Harald Salater bangs it on bass, and Undset also adds in a bit of guitar work too