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Written in fRoots issue 201, 2000
 

MÖLLER & KNUTSSON
Latitudes Crossing
Warner Atrium 3984-29704-2 (1999)

BENGT BERGER OLD SCHOOL
All Time High
Amigo AMCD 885 (1999)

Frifot’s Ale Möller and leading Swedish saxist Jonas Knutsson are the organisers of the Stockholm Folk Big Band project, bringing together Swedish-resident musicians from many cultures. Originally funded just for Stockholm’s year as a European Capital of Culture in 1998, it might seem potentially a worthy, artificial project, but that’s not its co-leaders’ style; the team of fourteen really sparked together, the band has now taken on a genuine life of its own, and Latitudes Crossing is its first release.
      It isn’t a simple joining together of contrasting approaches. Overlapping and weaving together phrases, modes, rhythms and textures from Gambian, Kurdish, Sámi, Greek, Senegalese, Indian, Japanese and Swedish traditional themes and new composition, the eight suites flow as musical entities rather than staggering jerkily between musical compartments. There’s strong melody and adventurous, finely collaborative playing of kora (Alagi M’Bye), ney and zurna (Ismet Demirhan), riti (Mamadou Sene), violin (Santiago Jimenez), cello (Amit Sen), nyckelharpa (Johan Hedin), marimba (Alfredo Chacon), percussion (Rafael Sida), Knutsson’s saxes and Möller’s large armoury, and splendidly powerful singing, led by M’Bye, Sene, Inga Juuso, Maria Stellas and Dalila Da Silva Costa.
      The recording could perhaps have been more upfront; the approach described in the sleeve notes - “no noise reduction, equalisation, compression or limiting of any sort” - might be clear-signal-path purist but the result sounds rather distant-mic’d with quite a lot of room acoustic, the dazzling double bass playing of Yasuhito Mori in particular sounding boomily unfocussed. However, the ear eventually reaches past that to the delights within.

      Partly related in personnel is the bunch of ace, free-thinking Swedish musicians that comprises Bengt Berger Old School. Drummer Berger, keyboard player Mats Öberg, singer/harmonica player Pelle Lindström, Jonas Knutsson and, here as a guest singer, Ale Möller were involved in the big-fun 'Ale’s Café' gig in Rättvik mentioned in fRoots’ recent Frifot cover feature. In this band they’re joined by others including saxist Thomas Gustafsson, singer Catherine Hansson and Berger’s co-drummer Bosse Skoglund.
      The inventiveness and wit of this music is less apparent from an album than it is live but, as with Latitudes Crossing, repeated listens draw one into its realm of unselfish no-bullshit musical communication, tapping blues, new Nordic jazz, eastern modes, Swedish traditional music and passing freely across genre boundaries.


© 1999 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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