The Oslo Jazz Festival 2003 will take place from 11 – 17 August. Earlier this spring the festival released a handful of this year’s concerts, and now we finally have the whole line-up in place.
Covering everything from ragtime to hip hop, the week-long Oslo Jazz Festival is one of Norway’s largest cultural events and one of this year’s highlights in the European jazz calendar. 76 events will unroll at 17 venues during the week-long jazz festival in Oslo, and once again audiences are invited to join a seven-day journey through the history of jazz.
The Oslo Jazz Festival proudly presents a unique meeting between a world class master and a young Norwegian comet. The Svend Asmussen Quartet with Ola Kvernberg will open the Oslo Jazz Festival 2003. Svend Asmussen is without a doubt among the world’s foremost jazz musicians, and Ola Kvernberg has enthused both audiences and critics a like since he entered the jazz scene at Oslo’s Django Festival in 2000. This August the two jazz violinists will bridge the generation gap and play all of two concerts in the Oslo Concert Hall.
Eight-time Grammy-winner Michael Brecker is one the greatest jazz musicians the world has ever seen. A major and influential figure in contemporary music, Brecker is the most important pioneer of style since John Coltrane. He is bringing his own jazz quartet, Michael Brecker Quartet, with him to the Oslo Jazz Festival. Brecker’s tone is clear and powerful. He always delivers the goods, and this will be no exception. With him in the band are Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums, Joey Calderazzo on piano and Chris Minh Doky on bass. Dreams become reality when this line-up enters the stage.
From a boat in Budapest to a “bar” in Dublin and from the Barbican in London to La Riviera in Madrid, Maceo Parker and his band have completed an 11-week European tour this spring. Parker has delivered all of 62 concerts with authentic funk launching the new CD Made by Maceo. The responses from the press and more importantly from the audience have been ecstatic, and in August audiences at the Oslo Jazz Festival will have the chance to see a true king of funk in free and untamed expression.
The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra will also be part of the festival line up at the Oslo Concert Hall. On this occasion the orchestra has invited Grammy-winner Vince Mendoza who will be joined by international stars Joe Lovano on saxophone and John Abercrombie on guitar. Composer and arranger Vince Mendoza is in a class of his own and has worked with a number of the greatest jazz musicians around today such as Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden and John Scofield. Hans Vroomans (piano), Lars Danielsson (bass) and Martijn Vink (drums) will also contribute to giving the audience a night to remember.
Joe Lovano will also appear at Kulturkirken Jakob with an amazingly talented Norwegian trio consisting of the virtuoso Håvard Wiik on piano, the dynamic Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass and the energetic Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. This will be a pure delight!
At Oslo’s world famous club, Blå, we have set up a meeting between Atomic and School Days with Ken Vandermark, Frederik Ljungkvist, Jeb Bishop, Magnus Broo, Kjell Nordeson, Håvard Wiik, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love. A meeting between these two bands is not an unexpected event. In addition to sharing the same rhythm section, the bands share a number of common features. There are similarities in their musical expression, and they share the same sources of inspiration and a common perception of music, interplay and improvisation. School Days and Atomic will inspire each other and at the same time stand firm in their own musical traditions. The music will be powerful and energetic with collective improvisation as well as smaller settings such as trio, duo and solo.
Tenor giant Bennie Wallace brings his quartet to Oslo this year. Always searching, Wallace creates a natural balance between tradition and innovation playing everything from New Orleans to avant-garde. With him he brings ever popular Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, who is much sought-after across the world. Together with the Russian pianist Benny Aronov and the mighty American drummer Alvin Queen, this star-studded team is a sure bet.
Bodil Niska is Norway’s first lady of the tenor saxophone and mainstream jazz. She founded a quartet with the legendary Norwegian pianist Egil Kapstad in the late 90s. This quartet has been well received both at home in Norway and abroad in Europe. Scott Hamilton is one of Niska’s greatest influences, and her smooth and warm tone on the tenor saxophone reminds many jazz fans of the great American players of the 40s and 50s. The Oslo Jazz Festival is proud to once again welcome Bodil Niska.
Denmark’s vocal star number one, Cæcilie Norby, is yet again invited to the Oslo Jazz Festival. This time she will grace us with a trio consisting of the wonderful Danish pianist Carsten Dahl and Sweden’s star bassist Lars Danielsson in addition to herself. The audience will be spellbound by the way Norby uses her voice as instrument and her incredible range. She is a very popular guest in Norway, and in 2 000 she was crowned queen of the festival.
A new dream trio of international format will take the stage at Scene West Victoria at this year’s festival. We have the pleasure of presenting Denmark’s marvellous pianist Carsten Dahl, Norway’s own star bassist Arild Andersen and top French drummer Patrice Heral (Vienna Art Ensemble). The music is written by Dahl and Andersen or by the trio as a whole. This modern, intense music brings both musician and audience into atmospheric landscapes of rhythmic art music speckled with elements from world music.
The imaginative British jazz musician Django Bates will perform during the festival with his band Human Chain. Jazzpar Prize winner Bates is known from Delightful Precipice and his work with Norwegian singer Sidsel Endresen. Joining him in the band are Iain Ballamy on saxophones, Michael Mondesir on bass and Martin France on drums. Human Chain present spontaneous, intense jazz with humour and quality. Here nothing stands still!
The English jazz singer Georgie Fame is on tour in Scandinavia this spring and summer.
Naturally he will also be paying the Oslo Jazz Festival a visit. In Oslo audiences can hear him sing with Sweden’s Ulf Andersson on tenor saxophone and the excellent Claes Crona
Trio. A strong team unites to give a concert we can recommend.
Jon Larsens commissioned work for the Oslo Jazz Festival 2003 is a solid symphonic work for string swing and strings in fascinating contrast. Hot Club de Norvège have had enormous success with the world’s first symphonic string swing concert White Night Stories, and Hot Cats & Camelia is the follow-up. Enjoy a unique concert with a tremendous ensemble of the Camelia String Quartet at their most beautiful and Hot Club de Norvège at their most wicked.
The Oslo Jazz Festival invites audiences to an exciting summit between American and Norwegian stars. Scott Robinson and Jay Leonhart from the US will be joined by Laila Dalseth, Per Husby, Totti Bergh, Frode Nymo and Jarle Vespestad from Norway. This is a meeting of jazz minds from two continents and two generations. The Norwegian constellation Dalseth/Husby/Bergh has played together for over 30 years and is a Norwegian mainstream dream team, while Frode Nymo and Jarle Vespestad are newcomers in this setting.
The Oslo Jazz Festival invites the audience to take part in a bona fide hip hop evening. Last winter Mike Ladd and Majesticons received great reviews in the Norwegian press for their second CD Beauty Party. Politically motivated Ladd delivers funky hip hop with a large dose of humour. Welcome to the party!
We are delighted to welcome Jazzpar Prize winner Marilyn Mazur to Smuget during the festival with her drum ensemble Percussion Paradise comprising Lisbeth Diers, Benita Haastrup and Birgit Løkke as well as Sweden’s young vocal talent Josefine Cronholm. This project offers a colourful landscape of improvisation, rhythm and vocals. Mazur is among the world’s foremost percussionists having worked with Miles Davis and having enjoyed a longstanding collaboration with Jan Garbarek. We anticipate many surprises covering everything from lyrical caresses to energetic outbursts.
Saturday night will truly be one of this year’s highlights as Sunkissed Live and VME present Matthew Herbert Big Band Project with a group of Norwegian musicians headed by Martin Horntveth, Lars Horntveth and Matthias Eick from Jaga Jazzist. The cream of the crop from Britain take the stage with a chosen few from Norway with highly profiled musician Matthew Herbert at the helm. Dj G-ha and Dj Olanskii will also be playing this evening, and if we’re really lucky Matthew Herbert himself might round off the evening behind the turntables.
Friday evening sees yet another triple bill with Prefuse 73, Jamie Lidell (Super Collider) and Martin Horntveth from Jaga Jazzist in the line-up. Scott Herren’s One Word Extinguisher has been hailed as a winner by the Norwegian press, and the Oslo Jazz Festival has invited him to Oslo. He mixes large doses of hip hop, jazz and electronica in wild abandon. Before Dj WTC enteres the stage both Jamie Lidell and Martin Horntveth will have entertained the audience with their individual brand of electonica.
Sidsel Endrsen’s music is a cross between vocal jazz, improvisation and contemporary music. Here she presents her project Undertow. Award winning Endresen has been a central figure on the Norwegian jazz scene since the early 80s. Together with Christian Wallumrød on keyboards and Jan Bang on sampling, she has toured Europe with this project, but this is the first concert in Norway.
World famous Tania Maria will be in town during the festival with her incredible band Tania Maria Viva Brazil Quartet. Tania Maria is Brazil’s queen of jazz and has created her own unmistakeable music style with a cocktail of jazz, blues, pop and Brazilian rhythms. This is music for both body and soul. She creates atmosphere and giving audiences the urge to dance. She brings some of Brazil’s best musicians with her to Oslo. Both the quartet and the audience will no doubt need a shower after this concert!
After many years of mutual admiration, a musical meeting between The Brazz Brothers and the award winning Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg with the Welsh folk musician Helen Davies on harp, is finally made possible. We can expect an atmospheric concert with the brass instruments in exciting contrast to the beautiful sound of the harp. Both the brass brothers and Palle Mikkelborg have written new music for this concert specifically intended for large churches, and we invite the audience to enjoy the magic in the Oslo Cathedral.
This year the Oslo Jazz Festival will host the Nordic jazz competition, Young Nordic Jazz Comets, together with the Norwegian Jazz Association. The competition gives 25-30 young Nordic jazz musicians the opportunity to present themselves in front of a large festival audience. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands take part in the competition. The winning band will tour the Nordic countries.
The complete programme can be found on
www.oslojazz.no. See
www.billettsevice.no or call 815 33 133 for tickets.
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