Marius Neset – Above The Clouds
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Saxophonist Marius Neset represents how many contemporary musicians, and listeners, approach music today; viewing the sonic landscape as limitless, and fearlessly embracing influences of every kind.
Achieving universal acclaim for his Edition records debut album, Golden Xplosion, he returns this month with its genre-smashing follow up, Birds, and expands his virtuosity into widescreen compositions of dizzying but accessible proportions. Ahead of his performance at this year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Selwyn Harris talks to this Norwegian high-flyer and his omnivorous approach to music
The west coast Norwegian harbour town of Bergen has none of the hustle and bustle you might expect from a city that’s the country’s second largest after Oslo. But behind this unassuming exterior is a buzzing music scene, fired up by both its deep-rooted traditions and new perspectives. Besides being the birthplace in 1843 of the great folk musicrooted Norwegian classical composer Edvard Grieg, nowadays it’s home to the so-called ‘Bergen Wave’ of post-rock that sprung into life on the brink of the millennium on the back of bands such as Kings of Convenience and Röyksopp, as well as Nattjazz, one of the best cutting-edge jazz festivals in Europe.
In 2013 it doesn’t feel inappropriate to be talking about these diverse strands of music in the same breath. One Bergen-raised musician who fits the bill is Marius Neset. Widely hailed as one of the most striking young instrumentalist-composers to have come out of the European jazz scene for quite some time, the tenor and soprano saxophonist is one of the city’s most recent prodigies. It’s the dramatic fjords and mountains though that surrounds the city, that are closer to the environment in which Neset was raised.
This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #174 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...