There’s something rockin’ in Denmark, and has been for 25 years. The NJO’s latest, recorded in 2003-04, does not contain a dull moment, thanks to Dorge’s imaginative charts: straightahead, free jazz, world music, even moments of Zen. That last category-like a clearing in the jungle-comes from guest vocalist, Josefine Cronholm, who sings “Body and Soul” at its slowest possible tempo while everyone reverently tiptoes behind her. Coming out of the descending turnaround, she hums two bars of the last eight, the accompaniment fades, and she hums the next two bars solo, leaving the tune unfinished. Beautiful touch.
An American guest, trombonist/singer Ray Anderson, joins Cronholm on the title tune, giving the pair a chance to swing joyously. Elsewhere, the infectious rhythm section propels the front line to some exotic sounds: “Munzun Mun” features Anderson on what Dorge calls “elephant trombone,” plunging that would make Ellington drool; “Something New From Africa” is Dixieland-ish, highlighted by Kasper Tranberg’s cornet; “Dukish Mingus” boasts a “walking” trombone-part of an exciting ‘bone duet by Kenneth Agerholm and Anderson; the persistent triplets of “Zulu Dance” keep it floating; “Xing Xang” is a delicate, meditative tone poem; “Sun Ra Saluting Mars,” hardly delicate, re-creates the Arkestra with a Latin back beat.
Related Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro