There’s a sense of irony about the title to the new CD by Håkon Kornstad, the Norwegian saxophonist formerly of Wibutee and Kornstad Trio. It points to an entirely different kind of encounter than the traditional jazz sax head- to-head normally understood by the term ‘Tenor Battle’. But there is some truth to it as well. There’s a question that’s played on Kornstad’s mind in recent years; how can he credibly join up the disparate worlds of the jazz tenor sax and the tenor opera singer? The backstory is of the saxophonist having an epiphany as an audience member at the New York Met in 2009 and going on to study for six years at the Norwegian Opera Academy. The new album demonstrates that Kornstad has taken a route that manages to effectively juxtapose both disciplines in the same context without, it would seem, alienating either fans of Scandl jazz or Italian arias. On Neapolitan and classical songs from Massanet’s ‘En Fermant Les Yeux’, Francesco Tosti’s ‘Marechiare’ and Monteverdi’s ‘Lasciatemi Morire’ (from one of the earliest operas ‘L’Arianna’ in 1608) to the later Strauss ‘Morgen’ and Bizet’s ‘Je Crois Entendre Encore’, Kornstad finds the missing link between his sax’s rich, dreamy sonority and ‘small’ operatic tenor voice. Kornstad outlines the themes with plenty of nuances on his sax while Lars Henrik Johansen’s harpsichord lends baroque colour and Sigbjørn Apeland’s harmonium, a Mediterranean flavour to the recording. Highlights include the affecting ‘Sadko’ (Song of India) from Rimsky Korsakov’s opera written in 1898. It’s a song that already has a jazz connection: Tommy Dorsey recorded a swing band interpretation in 1938. There’s no jazzing up of the classics here though. Instead, echoing the chamber classical ambience and ‘Nordic tone’ of North European jazz, Kornstad’s version achieves a pleasantly evocative cohesion of tenors even if the outcome proves less challenging than it could have perhaps been.