Jazz Funding in Norway

Mathias Eick @ 2011 Oslo Jazz Festival

I recently read a well-written article on the jazz scene in Norway, “How Norway Funds a Thriving Jazz Scene” by Michelle Mercer. I experienced firsthand the cutting-edge creativity of Norwegians throughout my travels: at the 2011 Oslo Jazz Festival (which I’ve heard Norwegians call “too mainstream”); and the 2012 On The Edge of Wrong Festival (a free, improvised music festival partnered between South Africa and Norway). It was clear a music festival such as On The Edge of Wrong was not for profit. Indeed, the festival largely supported itself, bolstered in part by grants and private donors back in Norway. Morten Kristiansen, founder of On The Edge of Wrong, told me flat out the festival barely breaks even, if that.

Rolf Erik Nystrom @ 2012 On The Edge of Wrong

In her article, Michelle Mercer surveys the financial landscape that supports improvised music in Norway, exemplifying arts organizations such as Cultiva, a 240 million dollar endowment based out of the small, sleepy town of Kristiansand. The endowment comes from, guess where, oil money. Granted, not every country is as oil rich as Norway, but what’s important is what Norwegians DO with their oil profits. Exxon Mobile’s annual 2013 profit: 44.9 billion dollars. Exxon Mobile could use 0.5% of their profits to create such a 240 million dollar endowment… just saying, maybe cut a few exec bonuses. Cultiva used its funds to support individual artists, fund tours, and throw the annual Punkt Festival, where improvised music is performed on one stage, recorded, sampled, and then remixed using electronics on another stage in improvised fashion–a festival that makes creative, improvising musicians anywhere drool.

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The creative edge of Norway’s music does not lend itself to profit. Although, the same is true about experimental music everywhere, whether its noise in a basement in Tokyo, improvised music at Café Racer in Seattle, or the Havresekken concert series in Norway. New, experimental music challenges listeners, especially those who aren’t musicians. And here, we also start moving away from jazz. The clip above could be (and is) classified as jazz (at least in Norway). The musicians in the clip probably studied jazz, and are definitely improvising. While blowing changes over a solid jazz swing beat will always feel great, it was a hip, innovative thing nearly a century ago. What’s hip today? What kind of “jazz” sound reflects today, more importantly , tomorrow? In Norway, arts organizations and government funders prize creativity as much as musicians. And the wealth of funding, support and opportunity are pushing creative music, and jazz, forward.

Read more on the how jazz thrives in Norway.

Dancing About Architecture

Rolf Erik Nystrom is “On The Edge of Wrong”

The Mahogany Room hosted the 7^th annual On The Edge of Wrong festival in Cape Town this past weekend. On The Edge of Wrong bridges different musical approaches of Norwegians and South Africans. As the name suggests, this festival pushes boundaries—personal, collective, improvisational, and the comfort zones of audiences and musicians alike. Morten Kristiansen, who organizes the festival both in Cape Town and Oslo, and a Norwegian jazz artist himself, studied at Cape Town’s College of Music. He created the festival to keep his ties with another country he loves, and I suppose to promote great music too. My immediate question, a musician’s first question, where do find the funding? Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly the Norwegian government (and a few other sponsors). After I asked this, Morten laughed and admitted, “I’ve never made a dime off this, and probably never will.” Big ups!

In an interview, Morten gave a nice analogy of his festival’s name: On The Edge Of Wrong is like a perfect conversation; one where you speak openly, honestly, without censorship of feelings and ideas, that directly connects two different bodies, that is less about content and more about the sheer engagement. And then time flies.

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 This year’s promo.

Rolf Erik Nystrom, a Norwegian saxophonist pictured in the beginning of this post, was featured at this year’s installment of hte festival. As you’ll hear for yourself, he straddles the edge of wrong. Nystrom collaborates with many musicians all over Africa, and now has a few more friends in Cape Town: Dizu Plaatjies and Errol Dyers.

 

Nystrom performs a solo piece.

 

Nystrom performs a duet with Dizu Plaatjies, a maestro of Xhosa traditional music and instruments.

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In August 2011 I took a train from Sweden to Norway to catch the Oslo Jazz Festival and get a taste for a country known well for its free approach to jazz and music in general. It’s a freer expression of the more straight ahead Nordic Jazz Dialects I soaked up in Stockholm. You can read my thoughts on it here. South African tabla/percussionist Ronan Skillen, while performing at On The Edge of Wrong, candidly admitted how intimidating is is to play free music for so many Norwegians, who can hear this music on the radio in their own country.

The Norwegians I met in Cape Town were not impressed when I told them I attended the Oslo Jazz Festival. It’s too commercial by Norwegian standards. Well, if the Brian Blade Fellowship is commercial, then commercial jazz must be pretty hip in Norway.

The Norwegian-South African connection immediately intrigues me. I’m not an ethnomusicologist. I’m not focusing on any one region or type of music. I’m not even concerned with just jazz anymore. The end all is a meaningful musical dialogue between vastly different countries and traditions—a perfect conversation.

This year, On The Edge of Wrong featured a Norwegian journalist posing questions to local and Norwegian artists and musicians. One of the interviewees was the editor of Chimurenga, a “pan-African publication of writing, arts and politics.” The publication supports the Pan-African Space Station, which archives local live shows as Youtube videos. The video below is of Lwanda Gogwana’s quartet live at Tagore’s, another venue that pushes quality jazz. I was fortunate enough to sit in that night… so the clip features two trumpet players.

 

 

The editor of Chimurenga was asked if he had qualms writing about jazz in his publication, specifically considering a Thelonious Monk quote: “Talking about jazz is like dancing about architecture.” The notion does sound silly. Music needs no language. It’s deeper, a supremely direct expression. It makes us dance, smile, laugh, and cry without a word.

But I laughed when I heard this Monk quote. People, and myself included, always have to talk or write about it, whatever it is. So I laughed at myself. For seven months now I’ve been writing about music in my off time. I laughed much later when I concluded that, if you thought like Monk did, your only response would be, Well… what’s wrong with dancing about architecture? Nothing. It’s just not normal. But somehow writing about music is at least not abnormal.

I look back at the (commercial) Brian Blade Fellowship concert at the Oslo Jazz Festival, where I sit at a table with two jazz critics. They work for All About Jazz. I must laugh for these guys too. This is their life. I sat by and listened as they one-upped each other for fifteen minutes, retelling and embellishing their favorite jazz concerts, arguing about elite guitarists today, or how they foresaw Esperanza Spalding becoming the next big thing (a modern diva). I bet these critics would laugh with me. They, like most jazz heads, worship Monk. We all do because Monk was, at least in his day, on the edge of wrong. Which somehow means, retrospectively today, that Monk was the most right.

Well, my feet are tired. I’ve been dancing too long now about architecture. But I have some more music to share. Don’t hesitate to write to me about it.

 

Reza Khota Trio at Ibuyambo.

 

Reza Khota (guitar), Shane Cooper (bass), Jonno Sweetman (drums) perform at Ibuyambo

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Happy Feet at Boulder’s Beach

A Furlough, Part 1: Jazz in Oslo

OSLO JAZZ FESTIVAL: Recap

I took a train to Oslo to catch the final three days of the Oslo Jazz Festival–a highlight for sure! First was Mathias Eick (above), a Norwegian trumpeter pushing a definite Nordic aesthetic: strong, sparse melodic improvising and a free feel. At the same time, the music is quite heavy, weighed with two drummers and a very emotional sound. It was funny to see some Norwegians dancing like it was club music. Check out a live recording of Mathias Eick:

Irony is a funny thing. I recently had to eat my own words. I wrote into my fellowship application that my travel itinerary was tailored to the seasons of each country. Good weather, good vibes, good music. Musicians don’t want to play in the rain. People hate listening to music in the rain. Right? Well…not exactly. Stockholm sleeps in the summertime. People travel away. A big reason for my side trip was the lack of jams in Stockholm in August. The twist was that Saturday, Aug. 20th was a very rainy day in Oslo. No matter! The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the New Orleans street parade down main street for over an hour:

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And still more, and more great performances. The Brian Blade Fellowship (above left) exceeded high expectations. The group presented new and old music, all of it superb! What I’d give for a composition lesson from Jon Cowherd, the group’s pianist and writer.  I missed the Trygve Seim Ensemble, a definite Nordic jazz group. But I did hear Trygve Seim, cool hat and all, perform with the Norwegian group “The Trio” (above middle). And of course, the jam sessions, which lasted each night until 3 AM (above right). Dig on a live sample from the Brian Blade Fellowship (discretely):

The Oslo Jazz Festival was pricey, just like Norway itself. I happened upon two free tickets, then bought two for myself. Combined with a few free shows, I stayed busy enough. A couple random highlights. Norwegians love to drink on party boats in the harbor. Wait, how does the anthem for partying on boats go again? To hear two different party boats packed full of people blasting “I’m On A Boat” simultaneously from the hillside above the harbor was…well…inspiring? Also crazy was “The Magic Hour.” No, not Wynton Marsalis’ Blue Note album, but the hour between 3 and 4 AM in Oslo, where the streets are overtaken by the people! And by that, I mean all bars close at 3 AM…you can fill in the rest.

I’m not a huge art buff, but the Vigeland Sculpture Park was something else. Beautiful in itself, the works of Gustav Vigeland depicting the stages of human life are inspiring. In the distance we see the ever impressive Monolith, depicting man’s desire to ascend to the sky as life ends by physically stacking them up on each other. Check out my Flickr site for more photos!

Finally, I’ll try to address the recent event in Oslo, though the above picture I think says it best. Presented by a local Norwegian artist in the heart of Oslo, the statement is a dose of wisdom that so many other countries could benefit from. I don’t live in Oslo. I don’t know it like I’ve come to know Stockholm. I won’t try to speak for it. But I experienced Oslo ever briefly through the lens of jazz. The spirit, energy and love I saw and heard at the Oslo Jazz Festival is my only witness to how the town fares.

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“A man must bear all that life gives him

with a courageous heart and a smile on his lips,

else he is no man.”

— Selma Lagerlöf —