Bill Frisell, Nubya Garcia and Andreas Røysum Ensemble make for a memorable Moldejazz Festival

“This is the best band in Norway,” a passerby tells me, and the Andreas Røysum Ensemble (pictured below) earn that crown tonight with joyous ease. It’s 10pm in the intimate, penthouse Storyville jazz club when this 11-piece explode into ferocious fire music, in the slipstream of the tall, charismatic Røysum’s wild clarinet. Picture this crazy gang as they step up to solo: trombonist Øyvind Brække in skimpy, loose kimono, trumpeter Erik Kimestad Pedersen in padded waistcoat fit for Arctic tundra, shaven-headed tenor Marthe Lea (leading her own folk-inflected version of this line-up the next day), and veteran free jazz bandleader and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, lending his weight to the disparate, breathing pulses of this young, beautiful band.

And after the explosion, shock two: blonde singer Sofie Tollefsbøl materialises in traditional female Norwegian costume, singing the English folk song ‘Barbara Allen’ a cappella to pin-drop silence. “Young man, I believe you’re dying,” she counsels as its ancient tragedy unfolds, prior to noise-folk akin to Ireland’s Lankum. She’s a soul singer for Etta James’ ‘I Would Rather Go Blind’. A bead of Nilssen-Love’s sweat drops onto his snare, then his hi-hat leaps as he joins Ivar Myrset Asheim in withering twin-drum fire. Finally, Røysum pied-pipers us out onto a rooftop bar, playing on unplugged. It’s 11.37pm and the sun on the far side of Moldefjord dims as we dance on, the spirit blissful, jazz’s freedom complete.

Founded in 1961, Moldejazz stakes a claim as the oldest continuous European jazz festival. Major fires in 1916 and 1940 (the latter in a Luftwaffe blitz) incinerated much picturesque architecture, but the beauty of the Romsdal Panorama – receding rows of mountains on the far side of the blue fjord – is visible from every streetcorner. Moldejazz similarly fills the town, from the Nordic Mardi Gras of the children’s marching band and high-kicking girl dancers who open each day, to the wooded mountain at Molde’s rear hosting rock festival-style crowds, where the darkling fuzz-guitar of Motorpsycho’s ‘Go To California’ ends in a needle-sharp freakout (the band, pictured above). The Fuzzy record shop’s basement meanwhile welcomes a mid-afternoon set by ECM’s Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity, listeners perching informally as Nilssen clamps drumsticks piratically between his teeth. A ferry even brings Moldejazz to tiny Hjertøya island, where Dutch sound artist Jaap Blonk recites Kurt Schwitters’ sound poem ‘Ursonate’ at the crumbling shepherd’s croft where the semi-Dada German maverick found 1930s exile.

This year’s artist in residence is Bill Frisell, whose first of 10 appearances here came when Arild Andersen invited him into his Dream Band in 1981, released as ECM’s Molde Concert (1982). Last year’s artist in residence Hedvig Mollestad used the chance to fundamentally grow through diverse new compositions and playing situations. Her fellow, senior guitarist takes things easier, leading his trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston through seven subtly shifting scenarios. Most intriguingly, the Bill Frisell Five adds his former trio of drummer Kenny Wollesen and bassist Tony Scherr. Frisell stands between them as a delighted ringmaster of his past and present, but it’s too much at first, like hearing double. The old guard act tougher, Scherr burly and irascible compared to Morgan’s boyish, quizzical air. The drummers’ friendly, conversational competition finds Royston more clipped and angular than Wollesen, who meets Frisell’s psychedelic forays with his own weird textures. Frisell orchestrates this hybrid quintet, triggering near-cacophony then country calm with effects pedal flicks, till the Five incrementally find their own dense, clockwork language, the drummers approximating Keith Moon’s octopus assault on a roadhouse blues. One Frisell fan travelled from Norway’s far north to see his hero this week, and the Five are worth the trip.

In duo with Arild Andersen, Frisell, 73, still looks at the somehow fiercely genial bassist, 78, as the master. Andersen’s thick, rounded notes, capacity for rattling rhythm and quick, spidery picking muscularly match Frisell; even his heavy arsenal of electronics, developed while playing with Frisell in the 1980s, equals the latter’s flaring soundscapes. Frisell’s inclination to understatement and increment, circling familiar Americana motifs, can, though, wear thin with less robust partners. A duo with Gard Nilssen sees Frisell serenely ignore the diffident drummer’s rare, cymbal-rattling thrusts. His Trio plus rising Blue Note sax star Immanuel Wilkins sounds mouthwatering, and at its best weaves a fine skein around Frisell and Monk tunes. When Wilkins takes the lead, the altoist lets lines curl and snake, running notes around his mouth and, inclined to melody, caressing Bacharach’s chords on ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’. Mostly, mellow moseying beats memorable risk.

Finally, Frisell joins the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Ole Morten Vagan and Eirik Hagdal orchestrally arrange his work for this reliably idiosyncratic big band, making Frisell’s version of Aaron Copland’s ‘Billy the Kid’ mournfully vivid, the bass walking as if to the gallows. Then a duet with violinist Ola Kvernberg actually knocks Frisell off his stride, the former’s crazy skittering skirl leaving the guitarist for once staring into the unknown, as they dance around a sort of Jewish waltz.

Marius Neset’s thrilling small group work has been sadly swamped by his own orchestral compositions in recent years. The saxophonist’s duo with tubist Daniel Herskedal is a welcome return to off the leash improv. Both emphasise audible, vocalised breath and high registers, Herskedal coaxing unexpectedly lonely, bestial moans from his tuba, and opera singer Hallvar Djupvik guests on a plaintive Norwegian folk song.

The Bobo Stenson Trio are up close and personal at a seated Storyville. The veteran ECM pianist builds a pensively spacious opening sound-world that creaks like a shuddering ship, and plays folk song ‘The Red Flower’ as a romantic standard. Musically, Stenson can be Sweden’s lonely man, yet he happily indulges drummer Jon Fält, an increasingly anarchic law unto himself, who explores the sound of his brushes whipping the air and even knuckle-cracks. “Tempo, professor?” he asks boss Bobo, before his Who-like violence forces an encore with his drum-kit’s debris.

Jacob Collier’s irritating precocity when Quincy Jones unveiled him, like young Mozart in all the worst ways, has settled down somewhat. Two consecutive one-man shows start with him skidding onstage, but his florid technique and mannered croon are relatively restrained, even in an autotuned, mutant take on ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. Fellow shameless entertainers Ola Kvernberg and Stian Carstensen guest ahead of their own show the next night, Carstensen playing accordion like a giant harmonica on a Euro-folk cover of Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ so carefree Bob himself would grin.

Nubya Garcia (pictured above) started her day swimming in the fjord, charmed by and then charming Molde with her open heart. She’s now a bandleader who eschews dominance, her old high-energy sax solos largely sublimated to her perfectly balanced quartet’s total sound, Daniel Casimir’s bass notes taking deep, giant steps, and keyboardist Lyle Barton sailing out into an electric Miles, coolly controlled cosmic groove. Garcia finally cuts loose herself in service of each moment of the exultant encore, ‘Pace’. It’s the best I’ve seen her, mature and giving everything. Irreversible Entanglements are kindred spirits, roiling around Moor Mother’s poetic incantations with urgent, optimistic, literary dance music. Luke Stewart’s double-bass hilt seems to glow gold, the edge seems chomped from Tcheser Holmes’ hi-hat, and as trumpeter Aquiles Navarro dials up laser pulses, this steamy evening in Storyville feels redemptive. “This was a memory of all of us,” Moor Mother declares. “We can all be free.” Over at the Alexandra Park, where mostly non-jazz acts put Moldejazz at the whole town’s drinking, dancing heart, neo-soul band Thee Sacred Souls carry a similar healing message, as singer Josh Lane runs into the crowd, erasing barriers. “Love is not weak,” he insists. “We’re going to keep moving on.”

Equally exciting and lovely is established Trondheim trio I Like To Sleep’s collaboration with Landslinja for Jazz, a 20-piece big band of teenage Molde schoolkids. It’s an untamed, exciting sound, capable of impressionistic colours, folk inflections and tornado power, played to excited school peers. The winners of the Jazzintro prize, Trondheim graduates Sondre Moshagen Lightning Trio, are almost as young, finding joy in pianist Moshagen’s minimalist eruptions and melodic delicacy, as they pleasurably test their limits.

Norwegian jazz’s future is as ever affirmed at Moldejazz’s latest communal and musical celebration. The last, perfectly absurd notes are from Alexandra Park’s DJ, at 3am Sunday morning: Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’.