The eMusic Dozen: Scandinavian Jazz

This one-off ten-piece band features many of Norway's most exciting players in an intense blowout that recalls the roiling energy of Miles Davis's electric phase -- with a heavier textural quotient. Drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, electric bassist Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten and upright bassist Bjørnar Andresen -- who died just three weeks after the session was cut -- lay down fierce, scalding, gut-rumbling rhythms, while a killer horn section including saxophonists Jon Klette, Vidar Johansen and Kjetil Moster blow in tight unison riffs and wild free sections. Guitarist Anders Hana and keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft alternate between tough licks and coloristic noise, functioning as an elusive glue for the proceedings. The music masterfully conveys the way the best musicians from Scandinavia nonchalantly erase lines between jazz, free improv, rock, funk and noise.

Thanks to landmark recordings on ECM Records by the likes of Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal and Arild Andersen back in the '70s, many people think of cool introversion when Scandinavian jazz is mentioned. Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen certainly embraces that Nordic feel on this excellent quartet outing, but there's nothing nostalgic or retro about the music. Joined by the fantastic Swedish reedist Fredrik Ljungvkist, the sublimely creative Norwegian drummer Thomas Stronen, and the Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger, he delivers exquisite chamber jazz marked by dazzling restraint. All of the players are afforded generous space to improvise -- sometimes over circling vamps, other times as a judicious multi-linear free-for-all -- but the ensemble's cohesion takes greater precedence. The music uses many different approaches, from loosely swinging grooves to levitating pin-drop ambience, but their intense focus remains no matter where the foursome goes.

Scandinavia has long been a hot spot for fusions of jazz and electronica, but like most stylistic mergers the music often sounds watered down. Not so with this effort between the Swedish-Norwegian quartet Stoner and Swedish electronic beat merchants Forss Versus Borg. Saxophonist Nils Berg composed seven lovely themes, generally keeping the quartet at a simmer. Berg and pianist Jonas Ostholm occasionally embroider the proceedings with concise improvisational asides, but the real focus is on the interaction with the electronics. On a piece like "Die Liebhaber der Rosa Klebb" Forss Versus Borg shake things up with stuttering beats that nicely puncture the groove laid down by the great drummer Jon Falt. On other pieces things are far more subtle yet just as effective -- the samples of a few guitar notes on "Essa" repeated in irregular patterns provides a nice tension.

One of Norway's most flexible and diverse young saxophonists, Hakon Kornstad could almost be the poster boy for stylistic range. He's worked in straight-ahead contexts, so-called "nu-jazz" with scene kingpin Bugge Wessltoft, free improvisation and his own polyglot pop-funk-jazz-rock juggernaut Wibutee. But on his first solo album Kornstad finds yet another path. Although he sticks mainly to tenor sax, there's a strong undercurrent of Scandinavian folk music -- such as the gorgeous "Sweden," which flits between lyric passages and terse multiphonic patterns. On most of the tunes he multi-tracks rhythmic elements -- on flute and melodica -- and a few guests join him on several numbers, including Knut Reiersrud's gorgeous lap steel on "Kokarde." But it's the reedist's resourcefulness -- particularly his skill at organizing minimal materials into fully realized performances -- and melodic gifts that keep this anything but Spartan.

On paper, this extremely hard-blowing power trio featuring fronted by Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson might occupy the same sphere as the Bad Plus, scuttling the idea of jazz repertoire in part by tackling rock tunes (on this album they cover Lightning Bolt's "Ride the Sky," while previous recordings have features songs by the White Stripes, PJ Harvey and the Sonics). But driven by the ferocious rhythm section of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and bassist Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten, the Thing easily transcends any potential schtick and instead achieves an unlikely beauty through focused intensity. In their hands garage rock is just as ripe for high-grade improvisation as pieces by Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita or the great Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin. Whether the interpretation is ear-shredding or feather-stroke delicate, the trio plays the shit out of it; the Thing maintains a stunning control, no matter how unhinged they may seem at first.

Solveig Slettahjell is usually classified as a jazz singer, but as this, her fourth and best album, makes clear, that appellation doesn't do her music justice. In fact, an artist that straddles pop and jazz like Norah Jones could learn some valuable lessons from Slettahjell. Supported by her well-named Slow Motion Quintet -- which features keyboardist Morten Qvenild and trumpeter Sjur Miljeteig -- she languorously yet precisely slithers and glides through a dazzling program, most of which was penned by her and her band. Slettahjell carefully shapes gorgeous melodies, constantly shifting emphasis through her faultless intonation. She doesn't scat or play loosey-goosey with the melodies, instead choosing to put her faith in clear readings. The band exercises impressive restraint, keeping the volume down while regularly dropping in new accents, textures and countermelodies.

This Norwegian quartet taps into a John Coltrane vibe on Blue Sky, from the white-hot sheets of sound delivered by saxophonist Kjetil Moster to the relentless McCoy Tyner-style vamping of pianist Erlend Slettevoll. The music is driven by rock's energy, and even though drummer Espen Aalberg masterfully spreads his beats all over the kit, there's a go-for-broke sensibility at work instead of the usual iciness of Norwegian jazz. The flexible guitarist Nils Olav Joahnsen guests on the album, adding typically lyric solos and thickening the harmonic element. Despite the Core's relentless energy, the band isn't purely about ecstatic screaming. In particular, Moster can be a highly melodic soloist, even when he's reached a boiling point, and the quartet's ability to stretch a piece beyond seventeen minutes without reaching stasis is impressive for such a young outfit.

Scandinavia has recently attracted attention with some unusual piano trios that subvert the genre's usual sound, either by playing with an almost somnambulistic restraint (Tord Gustavsen Trio) or by tapping into rock aesthetics (E.S.T.). Norway's In the Country aren't so reducible. On the group's excellent second album, keyboardist Morten Qvenild writes gorgeous poppy melodies, spreading out his notes like he was Paul Bley, while bassist Roger Arntzen and drummer Pal Hausken back him up with steady, slow-burn grooves. The arrangements are generally fixed, sticking with a loose verse-chorus structure, but all three players still find room to improvise: Qvenild delivers emotionally wrenching solos and Arntzen and Hausken subtly tweak their patterns with every pass. Cameos by the Swedish pop singer Stefan Sundstrom and New York guitarist Marc Ribot, who helps transform the meditative "Torch-Fishing" into a simmering rocker, only enhance In the Country's lyric gifts.

This trans-Atlantic trio, with Chicago reedist Ken Vandermark, Norway's Havard Wiik (piano) and Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten (bass), originally took its name and sonic inspiration from the famous 1962 Jimmy Giuffre album of the same title -- a record with pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow that offered a new style of chamber improvisation. Following the Giuffre model, Vandermark sticks exclusively to clarinet -- although he does play some Dolphy-esque bass clarinet, too. Free Fall employs a degree of austerity and highly interactive improvisational gambits, but on this second album the trio moves beyond homage and finds its own voice. That means that sometimes they raise a dissonant din, while at other moments they veer much further from the compositional borders. There's also an excellent series of free improvisations dubbed "frameworks" that show the natural intuition and rapport these three musicians have.

This beguiling quintet channels severe stylistic and geographical dislocation, its quick-blink patchworks and high-octane breakdowns technically dazzling. Led by accordionist Stian Carstensten, the core of the band's music is breakneck Bulgarian wedding music -- the sort popularized by the great clarinetist Ivo Papasov -- and they've got a ringer in Bulgarian reedist Trifon Trifonov, the only non-Norwegian member. The band has a sure-fire grip on tradition, but drummer Jarle Vespestad and guitarist Nils Olav Johansen put their own Nordic spin on the proceedings. Farmers Market also includes wild descents into bebop, disco, funk, techno, punk rock, American country music and tango, among others; there are a couple of mind-bending medleys of hackneyed material (TV show themes, bossa nova, Van Halen's "Jump") that completely transform the originals; they might be a novelty act if they didn't pull it off with such rigor and charm.

Swedish pianist Sten Sandell is a bit older than most of the artists mentioned here, but his creative restlessness is marked by the vigor of a man half his age. He first attracted attention as a member of Gush, a trio with Mats Gustafsson and Raymond Strid, but his current group enlists new generation figures in the form of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and bassist Johan Berthling. He's long been fascinated by microtones -- the sonic increments between the keys of piano. He's used organ, electronics, voice and simulated glissando to achieve the effect, sculpting roiling journeys of free improvisation. Here the trio is joined by the like-minded British saxophonist John Butcher, who helps the group shape a steadily rising-and-falling din as an ensemble sound mass. Luckily, the crisp recording allows each player to be heard clearly -- in particularly the sharp rhythm section seems to prod and cajole Sandell and Butcher without bullying.