Eurojazzist Randomizer #16: Jasmine Myra | Toša | Red Largo | Tord Gustavsen & Trygve Seim | Punkt Festival

Another round of great jazz-related music and festivals

After a couple of months of a very intense work period, I’ll finally manage to take a few days off. I’ll use them to go to two days of the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Slovenia, and to a concert by Marc Ribot and his trio Ceramic Dog in Pula, Croatia, where I’ll stay for a few more days by the sea. I still have two texts in reserve that I’ll publish next week, after which I’ll take a one-week break on Eurojazzist as well. Although I’ll probably still be posting video reels on Instagram made from concert fragments.

New listens

This week I recommend three albums. The first is “Where Light Settles” by British saxophonist Jasmine Myra, whom I heard a few months ago at jazzahead in Bremen. At the time, I felt that the trade fair hall was simply too large for her music, which radiates delicacy and subtle emotion. In a more intimate listening environment, everything works much better. Gondwana Records is known for highly melodic releases that carry something of what we call “spiritual jazz,” or simply the warmth and gentleness of indie pop. Myra fits that sensibility well and captivates with the beauty of her core themes and compositions, without unnecessary virtuosity display.

A very intimate record, though in a somewhat different way, is “Opatrně (Carefully)” by the Czech duo Toša, consisting of alto saxophonist Michal Wróblewski and double bassist Klára Pudláková. As noted in the promo material, they present a “shared musical language that emerged over a year and a half of performing and living together.” A somewhat unusual reference that came to mind was the album “Jasmine” by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden. Of course, the instrumentation and sensibilities are different, but there’s a similar informal, relaxed approach to collective music-making. The focus is on beautiful melodies, but within them you also find small “fractures” or slightly dissonant nuances: sometimes a scraping of the bow, or the sound of air escaping through the saxophone, or something along those lines. It’s clear these are musicians who are also comfortable in free music contexts, and that “nerve” surfaces within this small, intimate, home-like music.

Red Largo, an international lineup based in Berlin, with their latest record “Hotel Neuf” takes me back to the first decade of the 21st century, when I was deeply into Gutbucket and Electric Masada, AlasNoAxis, Hilmar Jensson, Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant, Zu, and so on. The quartet—Fredrik Kinbom (lap steel guitar, bass guitar, guitar, vibraphone, harmonium, celesta, synth, voice, electronics), Sonja Kessner (voice, flute, piano, harmonium, celesta, synth, electronics), Andreas Dormann (bass clarinet, bass flute, electronics), and Chris Farr, with special guest Matti Bye on several tracks (I recently reviewed the excellent band Kiri Ra, in which he plays with Linda Fredriksson and Lau Nau)—moves at the intersection of melodic indie, post-rock, and contemporary jazz. It may lean even more toward “alternative” culture, but who cares. It’s great (mostly) instrumental music that I warmly recommend.

Jazz Across Europe

One of the most unusual concert locations I’ve visited in recent years is the Fikl Art Stage in the remote Romanian village of Socolari. There, Romanian painter Gheorghe Fikl bought an abandoned estate on the edge of the village, right next to the forest, and created a kind of art center with several gallery spaces and a concert stage. The fortunate thing is that the village is very close to the Serbian border, so it takes just a little over two hours to get there by car.

Last season, among others, Jacky Terrasson and the Tord Gustavsen Trio performed there, and this year Tord Gustavsen comes in a duo formation with saxophonist Trygve Seim. This is a new project that will tour later in the year, and I will certainly not miss the concert scheduled for July 13.

Fikl Art Stage, photo by Monika Husar

And a festival I warmly recommend is Punkt Festival in Norway – I’ve written many times about Jan Bang and Erik Honoré and their musical adventures, as well as the concept of Punkt Live Remixes, so I won’t repeat myself. This year’s lineup is spectacular: Nils Petter Molvær, Tania Giannouli, Goran Kajfeš Tropiques, Erik Honoré, Bugge Wesseltoft, and more – the full program is HERE, and the festival takes place from September 3 to 5 in Kristiansand.

As in previous years, work always seems to get in the way at exactly that time, along with certain logistical and financial challenges related to traveling to Norway from Serbia. But one day I’ll definitely make it there.

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