This album is a spin-off from the highly successful concert promoted by ACT's Siggi Loch in 2014 at the Berlin Philharmonic and captured on the album Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian Woods (ACT 9569-2). What was supposed to be a one off occasion captured the imagination of the participants who – with the exception of Bugge Wesseltoft – reassembled in Oslo's Rainbow Studio in April this year and created a rather special album. It is special in that Solveig Slettahjell, who was the finest vocalist of her generation in the noughties, has at last found her musical centre of gravity that attracted so much attention in 2001-4, with the award winning albums Slow Motion Orchestra from 2001 and Silver from 2004. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and it would be difficult to point to any of her albums that followed and say they were of comparable excellence – until the Norwegian Woods album. Significantly, she is reunited with Morten Qvenild, who provided her with the kind of quirky, edgy accompaniment she enjoyed within her Slow Motion Orchestra. Here, with his critically acclaimed In the Country trio plus the fine blues guitarist Knut Reiersrud, they get Slettahjell's creative juices flowing again. Although she had a crack at writing her own material a couple of albums ago, she is not really a songwriter and is at her best when reinterpreting and reimagining the work of others. When she does this she has few peers. Here, performing songs by Bill Withers, Peter Gabriel and Leonard Cohen plus blues and gospel songs suggested by Reiersrud she excells. One small criticism of a fine album: I would have preferred Slettahjell's voice a bit further forward in the mix and a bit more time spent capturing her voice (it sounds a bit compressed). For students of globalisation/glocalisation, James Anderson's ‘Borrowed Time’ incorporates the Norwegian folk song ‘For Guds Folk Er Hvilen Tilbake’ and Blind Willie Johnson's ‘Soul of a Man’ similarly contains the Norwegian folk song ‘Om Nogen Ondt Meg Vil’ (both arranged by Reiersrud) – subtly done, they are fine example of glocalisation.