“You can get so many different sounds and textures and constellations inside a big band, it’s practically infinite,” he says. Nilssen is attracted by the scale of instrumental combinations offered by extended lineups. Later, when we were teenagers, we also played in a couple of big bands, one at high school and another in town.” “When I was eight,” says Nilssen, “I started playing in a marching band in my hometown, along with my best friend, the trumpeter Thomas Johansson. I’ve always loved the sound of a big band.” Jo Jones, drummer with the Basie orchestra from 1934 – 1948, is still one of Nilssen’s favourite musicians. It was a jazz-loving family and I grew up listening to the classic big-band format with Count Basie. “My father, grandfather, uncle and two cousins played drums. “I began drumming when I was two,” says Nilssen. Nilssen started playing drums practically before he was able to talk, and despite the dominance of small groups in his discography, his formative listening and performing experiences were with larger ensembles. A handful have been made with big bands: three with the acclaimed Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (Happy Endlings, Savages and Lion), one with Zanussi Thirteen (Live). It is a big band, Jim, but not as we know it.Įxtraordinarily prolific, Nilssen has since 2007 recorded over seventy albums, most of them with small groups such as the trios Acoustic Unity, Bushman’s Revenge and Amgala Temple. The band’s uniquely configured, all-star lineup features three drummers, three double bassists and ten horn players, most of them saxophonists. If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours, its debut, was recorded live at the adventurous Molde International Jazz Festival in 2019, where Nilssen was Artist in Residence. Audacious and experimentalist, like everything the Norwegian drummer and composer touches, Supersonic flouts convention and, in particular, realigns the longstanding relationship between pre-composition and improvisation in orchestral jazz. Get ready for the full tilt, barely tamed, beautiful monster that is Gard Nilssen’s sixteen-piece Supersonic Orchestra.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |