The Norwegian quartet known as The Core (made up of saxophonist Jørgen Mathisen, pianist Erlend Slettevoll, bassist Steinar Raknes, and drummer Espen Aalberg,) is augmented by two saxes and one trumpet for this session devoted to the charts of Vidar Johansen that add up to a four-part composition-improv interface extravaganza called The Art of No Return.
This is full-throttle jazz, with arranged heads, background motifs and interludes over which soloists have their say. And here, with some of the top names on the Norwegian scene, there's lots of satisfying music.
The quartet members themselves have a tight-knit complicity that helps propel the charts and spur the soloists. Not a free-improv affair, by any means: controlled, composed music is at the heart of this session. But the charts are imaginative and tailored to accommodate the players, as the music breathes like freely-improvised stuff but also offers listeners the pleasure of impressively careening, tightly contoured themes and accompaniments.
Three saxes and one trumpet seems like an uneven match of timbres, but since the trumpet here is of such a distinct player as Magnus Broo, the voice has more than enough character and presence, whether in open-sounding freedom in "No.1" or the more subdued, subtle Harmon muting of No. 2. Throughout, Broo plays with a full-throated sound, with lots of heart and soul.
The saxophonists, along with Matisen, are Vidar Johansen on Baritone and Jonas Kullhammar on tenor. Johansen and Mathisen also double on clarinets, adding an interesting alternative timbre to the music. The rhythm trio of Slettevoll, Raknes and Aalberg, a telepathic one that is obviously very finely attuned to one another, drives this machine like a motor.
The four-part composition comes off almost like a symphony, with a full-speed-ahead allegro first track, a serene adagio, a gospel-meets-fusion-meets-modal-and-polytonal scherzo, wrapping up in the equally multi-charactered closer, almost like a summing up of the ideas that have come before, ending with a seemingly totally unfettered blow-out, but that comes round with a salvation-like closing resolution theme.
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