The Norwegian quintet Honest John of Ole Henrik Moe on violin, Kim Johannesen on guitar & banjo, Ola Hoyer on double bass, Erik Nylander on drums & drum machine, on Klaus Ellerhusen sax and clarinet, are joined by multi-reedist and shakuhachi player Ab Baars at Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria to capture this quirky, controlled, and incredibly knowledgeable concert.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2018 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, Oslo, Norway, on October 29th, 2016, by Christian Obermayer.
"Honest John is a quintet comprised of some of the most active and colourful musicians in the fields of Jazz and Improvisation in Norway.
Honest John gathers inspiration from many divergent sources - Dutch Free jazz, Brazilian Jazz and Samba and composers like Weberen and Schiarrino. With these different traditions well represented in the band, the result is a vital tonic of energetic compositions, with focused improvisations which issue forth from them. The music of Honest John has been described as unique, different and highly original."
"Klaus Ellerhusen Holm's writing for the band Honest John may have the kind of ondulations and turnings you recognize from Anthony Braxton's compositions, but the use of chamber music historical references and of folk instruments (like the banjo played by Kim Johannesen) give it a very different dimension. The way "Treem" associates abstract, experimental moments with passages of the most explicit, bop-ish, groovy jazz is another distinctive aspect in presence, benefiting from the contribution of the guest musician in this album, a star of the Dutch jazz scene, Ab Baars, whose tenor saxophone and clarinet reproduce all the patrimony of jazz in new ways, while his shakuhachi, a traditional bamboo Japanese flute, reinforces the idea that this project is inventing an imaginary folklore for the global village we all live in. This is the last release with the participation of violinist Ole-Henrik Moe, replaced by accordeonist Kalle Moberg after the recording of the present collection of pieces due to his ongoing commitments to his compositional work, being one of Norway most prominent contemporary composers.
You couldn't have a more touching and vibrant farewell from his part, giving to Moberg a supplementar responsability in what concerns the realization of the Honest John beatiful utopia: to open up very specific music to a broader audience."-Clean Feed Records