Nordic names reign at Nattjazz

A former Norwegian Young Jazz Talent of the Year, and favourite of John McLaughlin, Mollestad is a Hendrix-fed free thinker with a penchant for ferocious jazz metal and a new album, Black Stabat Mater, just out. This headbanging trio gig featured special guest Mats Gustafsson on baritone sax, the Swede torturing his instrument in tonally audacious ways.

Rude contrast, then, to Morten Qvenild, whose solo piano recital took place in a dark theatre in a one-church town complete with James Turrell installation on the fjord foreshore. This synesthetic project variously drew on vocals, laptops, effects pedals, a baby grand and a sort of fibre-glass lava effect lit up with colours waltzing to the music (mostly an unearthly, leftfield take on Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’). Qvenild might have dug deeper, but as a spectacle it was impressive. Hilde Marie Holsen gave us experimental trumpet and spooky live electronics on the top of Bergen’s Mt Floyen, the fjord landscape laid out below; over at Edvard Grieg’s estate, in a concert hall with a stage overlooking the maestro’s lakeside writing hut, the Svein Olav Herstad Trio played lyrical jazz, the hardworking pianist buoyed by the flair of bass player Magne Thormodsaeter and drummer Hakon Mjaset Johansen, whose solo showed why he’s in demand by the likes of Jan Garbarek and Chick Corea.

Most of Nattjazz, however, took place at USF Verftet, an old sardine factory-turned-arts centre alongside the port, featuring two large spaces and a customised ‘talks area’ that featured a chat with Italian writer Luca Vitali, whose 2013 book Sound Check: Music From Norway underlines the pivotal role the Norwegian music scene played in the emancipation of European jazz. Highlights were many – multi-textured sextet Strings & Timpani were an improviser’s dream – but it was the inventive, Hammond-fired funk of trio Spirit In The Dark that stuck in the mind.

– Jane Cornwell

– Photos by Jarle H Moe