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Archives: Kristiansand

 


Yesterday: One night, years and years ago, some of us journalists joined Jon Hassell, and in that Norwegian pub that had nothing exotic or fourth world-like in its ambience, I introduced Jon to the great-great daughter of Gustav Mahler who was a cellist in a Symphony Orchestra. And that was special. Punkt has always been about the closing of circles.  (m.e.) 

 

Tomorrow: Renowned Norwegian artists celebrate the music of the influential trumpet player and composer Jon Hassell. The influential American trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell passed away on June 26, 2021. This year Hassell would have turned 85, and we wish to honor him with a memorial concert at Victoria on his birthday on March 22. This evening you will hear an all-star team of Norwegian musicians who have all either collaborated with Jon Hassell or have a relationship to his music.

On stage are three generations of inspired trumpeters, in addition to former members of Hassell’s band, who played with him both live and in studio. Several of them collaborated with him on Jon Balke’s „Siwan“ project and played with him at the Punkt Festival in Kristiansand. The music this eveningwill be composed by, or inspired by, Jon Hassell. The memorial concert is produced in collaboration with Punkt, which Hassell visited several times, and is organized in consultation with Hassell’s family. We hope you will join us on Tuesday. See you there!

LINE UP: Nils Petter Molvær – trumpet, Arve Henriksen – trumpet, Kristina Fransson – trumpet, Harpreet Bansal – violin, Eivind Aarset – guitar, Jon Balke – keys, Helge Norbakken – percussion, Jan Bang – live sampling, Erik Honoré – live sampling, keys, Arnaud Mercier – sound


The concert has been streamed live on youtube.
You missed it? Here we go

 

I over 100 år har Blå Kors med hjerte, kunnskap og kraft vært en trygg havn for mennesker som av ulike årsaker sliter i hverdagen. Det skal vi fortsatt være. Blå Kors Kristiansand ble etablert i 1909, og har en lang historie bak seg. Blå Kors er en diakonal organisasjon som fremmer rusfrihet i samfunnet. Vi hjelper mennesker som sliter med alkohol-, rus- og spilleavhengighet, psykiske utfordringer og mobbing. Organisasjonen satser også på forebyggende tiltak i tillegg til behandling, rehabilitering og ettervern av mennesker og deres familier.

 

John Kelman should have been here, like in the days of old. A strange place for the opening event of this year‘s Punktfestival, with a French-looking Jesus on the wall, but this venue of Blå Kors offered kindness, fine acoustics, and a really good concert. My first live experience in a very long time. Bugge Wesseltoft was asked to put the group together for this 25th anniversary of Jazzland Records. In these years  around 250 albums have been published from well known artists and those deserving wider recognition. I normally don‘t trust anniversary concerts, they easily end up consisting of tapping shoulders instead of taking risks. This one was different. Did they really play for the first time in this set-up? No intense preparations? Nearly unbelievable for what I‘ve heard.

 

Håkon Kornstad: sax
Harpreet Bansal: violin
Lilja (Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir): guitar
Sanskriti Shrestha: tablas
Audun Erlien: bass
Veslemøy Narvesen: drums

 

Everyone of them was able to think outside of well-trodden paths. They all managed what Robert Pirsig once described as „lateral drifting“ – finding new ideas on the margins of things and sounds they can handle while sleeping. The interaction was a lesson in mutual empathy – wakefulness and restraint in equal measure. They easily followed one another to places most quiet, and they all seemed to be as curious to each other‘s dicoveries as the audience was. The  music was travelling far distant places, in a natural sounding amalgam of styles, in which Classical Indian moments, fusion jazz stylings, nordic folk memories (as well as valuable seconds that would put a smile on the faces of Barney Kessel, Jon Christensen, and Sonny Rollins), were just stages of a long journey. They should do a record.

 

Live Remix: John Derek Bishop

 

And then John Derek Bishop offered a kind of „ghost story“ in the aftermath of the concert using his own apparatus and sounds he had sampled from what had happened before – transporting them (and us) into a parallel world of distant echoes, strange reminders, floating water and (crushing?) waves. Closing your eyes, this was a fine opportunity to „turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream“, to put it simple, and with John Lennon.

Ich erspare kalauernde Zitate aus alten Trio-Zeiten der NDW. Henning und ich würden kaum Spitzenwerte erreichen, wenn es um die Kategorie „herzlicher Umgang miteinander“ geht. Sucht man nach einem gemeinsamen Nenner zwischen uns, ist es gewiss die Musik, als Seelennahrung begriffen. Wobei Henning ein Musikreisender aus Passion ist, und ich eher selten auf Festivals auftauche. Das aufregende Hören schätze ich in heimischen vier Wänden besonders. Im Jahresschnitt komme ich gerade mal auf 10 Konzerte, seit 2005 war ich allerdings alljährlich Gast des Punktfestivals und kaufte für den Deutschlandfunk viele spannende Konzerte und Live-Remixe ein. Mein einziger Weltrekord: kein Journalist brachte es bislang auf zehn Jahre Kristiansand am Stück. Fiona Talkington und John Kelman folgen auf den Plätzen. Angesichts der Tatsache, dass 2015 dieser virtuose Banalist des Gitarrenspiels, der mit dem vietnamesischen Namen, für den ich jetzt nicht die richtigen „accents“ suchen möchte, vor Ort mit Molvaer und Co. aufspielt, kann ich nur mit den Augen rollen. Ich schwöre, dass ich jede seiner ACT-Platten mülltechnisch sauber entsorgt habe. Ansonsten scheint mir das Programm spannend, und einen Aufbruch zu neuen Ufern zu signalisieren – natürlich bleibt der „innere Kreis“ bestehen, Erik, Jan, Arve, Sidsel, Eivind. Gut so. Sogar mein Wahlverwandter, Sebastian Rochford (Sie haben immer noch nicht die beiden letzten Polar-Bear-Platten gehört? Das geht gar nicht!) ist vor Ort. Ich habe heute Erik Honore geschrieben und eine neue „Electronic Griot“-Performance angeboten. Wenn ich in diesem Jahr schon mit zwei, drei Buchprojekten im Kopf unterwegs bin, von denen, bei Erhalt der Vitalitätswerte, mindestens eins im Jahr 2017 erscheinen wird (Zocken, Teil 1), brauche ich da eine kreative Herausforderung. Sagt Erik mir ab, ist das vollkommen okay. Aber dann ist auch der Vorhang für mich gefallen beim Punktfestival (Zocken, Teil 2) – ich werde einige wundervolle Menschen vermissen, sicher auch die grossartigen Frühstückswaffeln im Hotel Norge. Und zu der Zeit, in der Sebastian Rochford einen Live-Remix so befeuert wie letztes Jahr ein gewisser Hamid Drake, werde ich in den Äusseren Hebriden das „Ego-Dumping“ vorantreiben. Das beinhaltet: in eiskalte Wasser springen, tagelangem Regen mit guten Anoraks trotzen, und im schwarzen Toyoten „Running On Empty“ von Jackson Browne spielen. Nach diversen Abenteuern gebe ich schliesslich meinem Navi eine Adresse in der Grafschaft Yorkshire an, und besuche einen alten Helden.


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