Oslo World festival gloried in hot-wired jazz performances and global sounds

Your scribe was in town for a five-day spell, exploring what is ostensibly an ethno-global festival on a grand scale. Many venues are used, from concert halls to alternative bars, but most are within the Oslo city centre walking distance, or sometimes involving a short tram-hop. This provides a magnificent opportunity to explore a still-unfamiliar cityscape. In one way, the programme spins out to deejay action, although often without much folkish spinning-content, and in the other direction it’s possible to discover the bleeding-point between jazz and traditional ethnic music. Some bands lay purely in the extreme improvising or riffing territory, as compatible guests, in the way that rock combos often appear at jazz festivals.

The veteran Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti straddles both the jazz and global scenes equally, appearing at Cosmopolite, a medium-sized all-musics space, with seats, lamps and flickering candles. This ECM legend seems to be playing more gigs in recent years, but he still makes for a rare encounter. Much of the set has him partnered by a second guitarist (six strings instead of twelve), both of them speedily percussive in style, but Gismonti also moves to the piano, investigating the other aspect of his work, tending towards a slower, grandiose flow. He enters a splintered, fragmented phase, this prancing piano approach sounding more adventurous than his guitaring. Gismonti glides through a medley of Brazilian composer works, including Heitor Villa-Lobos, fleet and vigorous, with an emphatic percussiveness. The other guitarist plays a number, then Gismonti brings out his 12-string again, fingering intricately, it feeling premature as he concluded, as this set sped by lightly, time flashing quickly.

Straight after this, it’s time to visit the small alternative Kafé Hærverk, a significant haunt for free improvisation in Oslo. We might not know Cimota, but reverse the name and they cannily become Atomic, the recently-retired veteran combo. Former core members reunite: Håvard Wiik (piano), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (basses) and Hans Hulbækmo (drums), augmented by trumpet and saxophone from the lesser-known Eivind Lønning and Espen Reinertsen. This intimate bar-and-a-few-tables joint is crammed to capacity, resonating with Cimota’s powerfully intricate free-compositions. Tightly swinging themes open up via stretches of abstract discovery, Lønning with and without mute, sparking and spluttering, having a light engagement with solid space. Wiik runs off on upright piano, before calming for a very soft and slow piece, forming a glowing classicism. Next, there’s quite a jazzed thrust, momentum rollin’, until the members get into faint breath-sounds, Hulbækmo concentrating on the metal resonators of his kit.

Oslo’s most famed club is the Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene, the Ronnie’s of the city, where the veteran Ethiopian keyboardist Hailu Mergia has sold out, all available audience perches occupied, even up in the prime vantage-point balconies. Merging Ethio-jazz with supple funk, the trio is completed by electric bass and drums, Mergia playing Nord keyboards and Fender Rhodes, also turning to accordion later in the set, and with an organ setting on the Nord. The trio share collective vocals, and there’s a bass breakdown to add variety, Mergia himself occasionally taking a lead vocal. The accordion tunes are more distinctive, providing a set highlight, underpinned by loping basslines, with solos from the drums. The crowd begins to clap along, completely unprompted, and Mergia tops off the gig with a melodica solo.

Master Oogway - Photo by Lars Opstad​

Later, back at Kafé Hærverk, the relatively new band Master Oogway (close to a decade together now!) display zero folkloric content, instead focusing on what could be deemed free-progressive freakiness, sludge rock heightened with a sense of mewling guitar solos and growling saxophone epiphanies. Your scribe hung on to a front table, lugholes pressed absolutely flat by this outfit’s dark jet-streams. This band perfectly unifies extreme jazz and rock, without being jazz-rock. Gradual upheaval characterises their emergence, until a heavy-sludge guitar riff topples out, peaking then leaving Lauritz Heitmann Skeidsvoll’s feathery tenor to carry the tune-frame, drum patterns accelerating. A manic, angular riff strikes glancing blows, as Håvard Nordberg Funderud toggles switches and stamps on pedals, then pulls back to allow a drum solo. Cyclic actions are in tandem, as tenor lines grow and repeat over a chunky dreadnaught bassline. Oogway hurtled towards a supreme levitation, masters of ultra-heavy dexterity. This is one of Norway’s greatest young bands.

Another night heralded a typically large-scale project from the Trondheim Jazz Orkester, at the Riksscenen theatre. Accustomed to working with a wide range of composers, this gig found them following the detailed constructions of Marianna Sangita Røe, presenting her new ‘Hjem’ work. She called for a particularly wide expansion of the TJO’s potential membership, including oud, saz, tabla and goat-pipes, as well as joik vocals. Singer and percussionist Røe is a Greek-Norwegian fusion-being, but her music also inflates beyond those cultural zones. Yes, we have a cocktail here, but it’s blended together with skill and taste. Røe dances as she conducts, tabla fills knitting with jazz kit-drumming. There are also hard electronic trimmings, along with frame drums and wooden flute, making up a wild electroacoustic palette.

Also at Riksscenen, the next night, Norwegian tenor saxophonist and composer Karl Seglem directed a similarly diverse ensemble, also attuned to folk music, mostly sourced from his homeland. Seglem’s expansive ‘Mytevegar’ piece sat well beside Røe’s ‘Hjem’. Unlike many Norwegian artists, Seglem hasn’t managed to spread his word internationally, over a four decade career, and seems to be more of a domestic presence, often working with visuals and governing multi-media concepts. This was a second night for the goat-horn, with Seglem’s band also including doubled drums, bass, piano, keyboards and a pair of fiddles. These strings set up a slow lurch, over which Seglem soloed softly, with one of the violinists also singing. Here, again, was a balanced meeting between fjord-jazz and windswept folk tradition. It was difficult to avoid considering Jan Garbarek as a potential influence.

Although not within the full reach of Jazzwise, the festival’s most exhilarating (or moodsome) global-zone acts also included Altın Gun, Daniela Pes, Ana Lua Caiano and Aïta Mon Amour. These represented Dutch-Turkish psych-disco, Italian darkwave-mass electronica (intoned in an invented language), sample-built Lisboa collage-folk and rural Moroccan full-flight beat-trouncing, with hardcore traditional vocals. Respectively, but not necessarily respectfully.