It's been a while since my last blog post, and as always, the excuse is the ever lasting lack of time. It has been a busy summer, but a great one. I have played a concert with my big band at Copenhagen Jazz Festival, worked as a volunteer at two festivals in Norway, and been a weekend to London. In between these festivities, I have worked my way up and down the Norwegian coast three times while working at Hurtigruten. This post will be about my festival experiences this summer.
Copenhagen Jazz Festival
After three weeks on board the ship, I flew from Tromsø in Northern Norway back to Copenhagen to play at the jazz festival with the University of Copenhagen Funk Big Band. The repertoire consisted mainly of James Bond-classics, but we also played some funk numbers. Apparently, the week of Copenhagen jazz festival had been rainy and cold, but on the day of our performance (that was of course on a free air stage) the sun was shining and it was really nice to be outside. The concert went great, and our vocalist for the occasion, Danish/American Debbie Cameron, was just fantastic. I also got to see some other concerts in town, while biking around following the music and stopping wherever there was something worth hearing (meaning that we stopped around almost every turn).
Skral Festival
After three days in Copenhagen, the trip went on to the Norwegian city Grimstad, and volunteer work at Skral Festival, a festival that started as a small gathering of friends, and now is a big festival with thousands of visitors and a really good line-up. This years line-up had among others the Norwegian artists Astrid S, Sondre Justad, Ane Brun, and Unge Ferrari, and the more international Veronica Maggio, Jose Gonzalez, Lion Babe, Gramatik, Sam Feldt and Mark Ronson. They were great concerts at such a cute stage area down by the sea.
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| Astrid S |
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| Veronica Maggio |
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| Veronica Maggio's bass player |
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| Mark Ronson |
Molde Jazz Festival
As every year, the Molde jazz festival is not worth missing. The six days of jazz, funk, soul and New Orleans trad-jazz are the best things happening in Molde all year, and anyone going there will agree. Where do I even start when describing this wonderful week of music. The line-up was again awesome, with a nice variation of Norwegian and international artists, and with a variety of genres within the jazz-world. My three favorite concerts at this years Molde jazz were my big idol Esperanza Spalding, performing her Emily's D+Evelution concept, the very interesting and fascinating duo of saxophonist Joshua Redman and violinist Ola Kvernberg, and the amazing singer Kurt Elling and Branford Marsalis Quartet. These three concerts proved some extreme talents in Jazz music and improvisation and playfullness at its best.
But the line-up presented much more. Knut and I went to almost 20 concerts that week, including Pat Metheny & Ron Carter, Steps Ahead, Joss Stone, Karpe Diem, Lemaitre and Jaga Jazzist amongst others.
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| Trondheim Jazzorkester & Skrap |
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| Streetparade |
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| Kurt Elling and Branford Marsalis Quartet |
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| Esperanza Spalding |
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| Joss Stone |
