Melodious swing jazz from a qnt with lots of guests including the star guitarist Louis Stewart

Like a typical Norwegian music career, «Uppercase»
kicks off with a drum march, gliding into a mysterious
quasi-symphonic world and from there to moody
melodic thoughtfulness - until «Sweet Martina» takes
off in catchy latin swing with a rocky backbeat under
Erik's brilliant and warm trumpet solo. All delicately
wrapped in a mix of distant flutes, harmon muted
trumpets and a groovy rhythm section. This «reduced
big band» sound also tells the story of Erik's lifelong
collaboration with Sandvika Big Band and the inspiring
milieu it after 45 most active years still represents.
Sax and flute player Rune Nicolaysen shares this
background and contributes powerful solos with
stylistic references to Knut Riisnæs as well as Dexter
Gordon. And his hommage to the bandleader «E.T.H.»
is simply touching in its beauty and thoughtfulness.
Pianist Freddy Hoel Nilsen is any band's eternal
«groover», always raising the temperature - as here
with his own Xmas blues stretched from 12 to 16 bars,
and with the brilliant idea of putting Johnny Mandel
into a bossa bag.
Bass players Sture Janson from Bodø (newly retired
from the Oslo Opera Orchestra) - and Danish-born
Andreas Dreier represent two generations with the
same ideal: Deep listening drive. Whereas big band
drummers Erik Jøkling and Lars Erik Norum share
the rare ability of swinging softly - with energy.
The standards as well as the musicians are all
challenged by arrangements taking us into both 5/4
and 6/4 time («Love For Sale»), straight and double
time and surprising moods. I'm sure both Cole Porter
and Horace Silver would have loved these versions of
their songs. And for an old bebop'er like myself it's
great for the first time in 2015 to hear a genuine new
bop theme that even Bird himself would have accepted
- Erik Thormod Halvorsen's «Kari i Nice». Wow!
Uppercase!
Erling

Track Listing

• Sweet Martina
• Mr G.J.
• Love for Sale
• E.T.H. Bossa Nova
• Kari i Nice
• Close Enough For Love
• 3. dag
• Out Of the Night Came You
• E.T.
• Old Folks
• East Of The Sun

Additional Details

Label: Losen Records

Genre: Jazz

Language: English

Run Time: 54:26 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 01/15/16

UPC: 7090025831386