Icelandic jazz stars roll out for Reykjavik Jazz Festival

It was a relief to travel to autumnal Reykjavik after all the heat in large parts of Europe. And there are clothes against daytime temperatures of 12 degrees. But the storm and the lashing rain on the first day almost make forget the joy of the welcome cooling. Nevertheless, the next day the sun winks into the hotel room early in the morning and the wild wind is gone.

The Iceland Liberation Orchestra may not have stirred up a musical storm the night before. But with its new, 45-minute suite Aether, bandleader and saxophonist Haukur Gröndal and the orchestra, with exciting Icelandic musicians such as trombonist Samúel Jón Samúelsson or the two percussionists Magnús Trygvason Eliassen and Pétur Grétarsson, as well as the Finn Kari Ikonen as an excellent and virtuoso guest on the piano, took the audience into multi-layered, beautiful, wonderfully open, Nordic-tinted, jazzy worlds of sound. Because that's what this orchestra is all about, which allows the participants a lot of freedom from fixed structures without interrupting the flow of the music.

Just Blues was the title of a concert with a quartet by the Icelandic guitarist Börkur Hrafn Birgisson a few hours earlier. With a great view through the huge glass windows onto Lake Tjörnin, which borders directly on the building, the audience listened to simple jazzy blues played with so much passion and freshness that it was simply great fun to listen.

Jón Ómar Árnason, himself a guitarist and director of the Reykjavik Jazz Festival for three years now - he took the reins in the first covid year 2020 - continues the tradition of giving many Icelandic musicians a podium at the festival. And he likes to give the local musicians exciting new encounters. This time he brought together the Icelandic duo of Óskar Gudjónsson and Skúli Sverisson, who have been playing together for two decades, with the Danish guitarist Jakob Bro. For a first-ever joint concert of new music written especially for this constellation, in one of the halls of Harpa, the festival's main venue, an imposing concert hall and conference centre opened in 2011 at the harbour of Iceland's capital. And there the three exceptional musicians sat close together to beguile the audience with delicate, soulful jazz sounds. Further concerts of this new trio abroad are already being planned. And perhaps Árnason's idea will turn into a permanent new band in the future.

Icelandic pianist Ingi Bjarni also brought a premiere to the 32nd edition of the festival, playing for the first time in a band with his former teacher, Swedish bassist Anders Jormin. In a quartet with guitarist Hilmar Jensson and drummer Magnús Trygvason Eliassen, probably the busiest musician at this year's festival, Bjarni treated the audience to fresh compositions and his wonderfully flowing, lyrical Nordic jazz.

And there were more interesting things to hear in Iceland's capital, which is booming and full of tourists like never before. The solo concert by pianist and flutist Kristján Martinsson, for example, who created interesting sound combinations between intimacy, sound search and expressiveness by using pre-sampled flute and piano sounds, which he then combined with live playing. The quartet of the Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, with saxophonist Marius Neset and pianist Helge Lien, performed with a great atmospheric density, offered romantic moods, but also impetuous improvisations and exploding moments - held together by the band leader's so versatile playing on the double bass. And the project The Moon And I treated the audience to evergreens by the great French composer and pianist Michel Legrand, beautifully sung in Icelandic by Heida Árnadóttir.

Not to forget, of course, the final concert of the festival in the imposing Hallgrímskirkja, which so characterises the cityscape of Reykjavik. It is not only the largest church in Iceland, but also the second tallest building on the entire island. ‘The Buchanan Requiem’ by the Danish trumpeter Jakob Buchanan unfolded as a powerful, multi-layered, one-and-a-half-hour jazz requiem with three choirs from Iceland, Finland and Denmark, the Reykjavik Big Band and top soloists such as the Icelandic singer Ragnheidur Gröndal, Anders Jormin from Sweden on bass or Iceland's Hilmar Jensson on guitar. Conducted by the Norwegian Geir Lysne, this musical requiem mass by the Dane proved to be a thoughtful experience that got under the skin.