Show-Going: Oslo Jazz Festival

I started my Oslo Jazz Festival experience with Hermeto Pascoal, who died on September 13 at age 89. A composer and multi-instrumentalist — on classic albums like Hermeto and Slaves Mass, he played flute, saxophone, keyboards and guitar — Pascoal was an icon of Brazilian jazz who had been on the global scene since 1971, when he composed three songs for Miles Davis’ Live - Evil. Onstage at Cosmopolite, he sat in a wheelchair, watching from the side as his working band — saxophonist Jota P., pianist André Marques, bassist Itiberê Zwarg, drummer Ajurinã Zwarg (Itiberê’s son) and percussionist Fábio Pascoal (Hermeto’s son) — ran through a joyful, fervent set that made room for experimentation and investigative complexity. “Taynara,” off Hermeto’s 2003 album Mundo Verde Esperança, was a peak of the evening, its sweet melody bringing warmth and a swirling bliss. And an avant-garde moment that saw Jota P. picking up a flute and both drummers coming to the front of the stage with handheld percussion was mesmerizing. As Fábio reminded the crowd, these were Hermeto’s compositions and arrangements, even if he wasn’t physically able to participate. As if they could have been anyone else’s! It was an honor to be in the room with “O Bruxo” one last time. Thank you for the inspiration, Hermeto.

Andreas Røysum, Joshua Abrams and Hamid Drake
Himmel
August 14th

The trio of bass clarinetist Andreas Røysum, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Hamid Drake — Røysum from Norway, the others from Chicago — gave its very first performance in Himmel, the intimate room next door to BLÅ. It was stunning — an all-improv set that bounced from avant-groove to avant-groove, always dissolving in between and then racing back to a beat. Abrams at one point switched to guimbri, the Moroccan bass he plays in Natural Information Society, and Røysum finished the night on flute, a welcome surprise. Drake, who has worked with everyone from Pharoah Sanders to Herbie Hancock, turned 70 earlier in the month, and there was a joy in his playing that could only have been cultivated over a long, multifaceted career.

Great Intentions, the new album from Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity, revels in melody and taste. And orchestration. For this one, the Norwegian drummer adds two additional players (Signe Emmeluth on alto, Kjetil Møster on tenor and bari) to his trio with saxophonist Andre Roligheten and bassist Petter Eldh, evoking both a big band and a small group but existing somewhere in between. The group embraces New Orleans brass band ideas (“Telemark Twist”), punk energy (“Ostronology”) and the music of Paul McCartney (“Waterfalls”), but always with Ornette Coleman’s chordless quartets in mind. At Nasjonal Jazzscene, Nilssen presented the trio plus American sax legend Joshua Redman, a collaboration that yielded serious but gratified results. (Redman was the festival’s artist in residence.) During a set that included the Elastic Wave cut “Acoustic Dance Music,” Redman presented himself not as a guest star but as a true band member, if only for one night. A humble attitude that no doubt enhanced the music. (Not that you’d expect anything less from Redman.) This was the quartet’s first full show, but Redman had previously sat in for a rendition of Ornette’s “Happy House” — a ’70s-era piece that featured his father, Dewey Redman.

Vocalist Charlotte Dos Santos released her debut, Morfo, in 2022; took home the Spellemann for Best R&B/Soul album in 2023; and then took a break. But she came back big at BLÅ on the penultimate night of Oslo Jazz Festival, bringing her ecstatic jazz-soul to a you-couldn’t-fit-one-more-person-in-the-room crowd. The singer offered older tracks, like the floating “Patience,” and previewed the forthcoming singles “Pot of Gold” and “Within Me,” both of which have since been officially released. (Pay attention to the end of the latter song and you’ll hear a quote from John Coltrane’s “Naima.”) But the legendary Oslo club shook when Dos Santos dove into her 2017 breakout single, “Red Clay,” a deeply personal reinterpretation of the Freddie Hubbard jazz standard. At one point, Dos Santos remarked, “It’s like a holy experience in here.” She wasn’t exaggerating.