About

Liner notes

In the more than six decades since the advent of free jazz there have been plenty of attempts to situate unfettered improvisation in a large ensemble setting. Usually such endeavors have occurred when every musician involved is well-versed in avant-garde practices, whether Alexander von Schlippenbach’s long-running, totally free behemoth Globe Unity Orchestra or more structured entities like Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath. The scintillating Norwegian trumpeter Thomas Johansson—a member of probing, hard-charging groups like Cortex, Friends & Neighbors, and Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit--would fit naturally in any of those bands, but on As We See It he’s in the company of a slew of curious, highly skilled players from his hometown of Skien, most of whom don’t share his free jazz background.

Since forming in 2010 the Scheen Jazzorkester—a professional big band compromised of a diverse assortment of players who share the same hometown in the Telemark region--has tackled a broad array of music written by members like drummer Audun Kleive, saxophonist Jon Øystein Rosland, and pianist Rune Klakegg, but Johansson was determined to push the ensemble in new directions. “They wanted to see what my music could bring to the mix, and how the band would respond to a more open setting,” he says. The music on this recording reveals how the group delivered on his challenge, but it admittedly took some hard work.

“When you are writing more improvised music for classically trained musicians, you have to give them a clear idea of what you mean, since they most often do not share the same references as you,” explains Johansson. “In my head, when I see a long melodic line with no specific written rhythms, my mindset immediately goes to Ornette or Ayler. But, if you haven’t heard Ornette or Ayler, then I can’t expect you to know what I am talking about. I had to spend a lot of time in the early rehearsals with this project. I sang the lines over and over, and often not in the exact same way either, to make everybody understand how the organic flow of a melodic line could evolve. Things are never as they are written. It depends on multiple variations; how the room is, what you have done that day, and how people feel. That’s some of the beauty of it as well, to make everyone feel that we are creating something together, and that personal expressions are welcomed in the mix, and that what you are saying may tip the scale or send things off in a new direction. The ears have to be on, and there’s no room for just counting your bars and playing what’s in front of you. It is as train that you’re either on or off. I made a sheet with graphic notation that everyone was given. This way everyone had a starting point for improvising, especially since I wanted all the players to contribute to the improv parts, not only the jazz ones.”

That directive is clear in “Conversations”--a tightrope walk of clear-eyed give-and-take where every participant proves that they can listen adroitly and respond in a way that’s fresh, genuine, and electric—that blossoms into the regal yet churning “Fanfare My Dear?” Compared with previous Scheen Jazzorkester recordings, such as last year’s measured collaboration with pianist Eyolf Dale, Commuter Report, there’s a palpable tension in the playing, as the free jazz impulses collide with brass-heavy, tightly arranged charts. But it’s a good kind of tension—an artistic struggle unfolding before us waged in the spirit of creation, not conflict. The slow-moving, stentorian swells of “Anthem for the Uneasy” are deliriously pummeled by the non-stop motion and aggression of drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen (deftly filling for Kleive on this project), and each solo arriving as a soulful salvo fired in the heat of battle. The closing piece “Fierce Disputes and Drunken Reconciliation” transforms that tension into a celebration, pitting almost a granite-hard groove limned by the metallic guitar chords of Even Helte Hermansen and featuring muscular solos by trombonist Magne Rutle and Johansson against a neck-snapping, Dionysian sprawl of R&B filled with garrulous chatter and pleading alto statement from Guttormsen that appears to reach the pearly gates just before the groove switches back to tumult. That push-pull adeptly captures the spirit of the album with a sly nod, leaving little doubt that the musicians had a blast engaging in this particular tug-of-war.

Peter Margasak

Rome, Italy