live — Jazz concert documentaries and fine art photography

Reed player Nicolas Masson is a leading figure on the Swiss new jazz scene with several recordings on the prestigious ECM label. He is also a wonderful photographer, producing deep portraits and personal works which are featured on several album covers from ECM Records. Last Tuesday and Wednesday he performed with his quartet comprised of Colin Vallon on piano, Patrice Moret on double bass and Lionel Friedli on drums at the Bird’s Eye Jazz Club in Basel. Last time they visited the club was almost three years ago. I chatted a bit with Nicolas during sets and it was the first time since the Corona-virus lockdown that they played in a jazz club together in this formation. Below are a few impressions from this high-energy memorable event.

If you like to see more of Jazz, check out my featured images in the “Portraits in Jazz” section or individual sessions in the “blog”. Hopefully they inspire you to go to a club near by and experience it all live.

Rymden is a new jazz trio comprised of Bugge Wesseltoft on keys, Dan Berglund on bass and Magnus Öström on drums. Names which are very well known in the jazz scene and enough to draw an audience of over 450 people to a stop-over of their inaugural tour. Yet the amazing jazz which came out of Rymden during a wonderful concert at the Burghof in Loerrach is more difficult to describe.

It sounded Scandinavian, but what defines Scandinavian jazz? Well, no easy answer in my opinion, you kind of feel it when you hear it. Is it this combination of lyrical elements which might be influenced by both memories of the past and the vast and dramatic Scandinavian nature? Combined with rhythmic soundscapes which could be inspired by the symphony which nature sometimes conducts through blowing wind and floating water, when all kinds of things start to squeak, rattle and hum?

In any case, what was on the menu was deeply athmospheric, rhythmically extremely interwoven and mindblowing in its virtuosity. High intensity jazz. How did it get there almost out of the blue? While it is a new trio with no internal historical evolution from which to draw from, they of course have huge experience and accomplishments as bandleaders or sidemen from other world-class formations, a shared vision and in the case of Magnus and Dan audible intimacy as former e.s.t. bandmates. Bugge did blend right in, and that is maybe a surprise to those who might compare him to Esbjorn Svensson. The easy thing would be to say that the trio is a continuation of e.s.t. with another piano player. But honestly it did not feel like a continuation of e.g. leukocyte. There were some sounds reminsicent of it, and signature improvisations where you wonder how they were held together. Neither did it sound like a furtherance of Magnus’s highly emotional storytelling on „Thread of Life“ or „Searching for Jupiter“ following the unexpected loss of e.s.t.`s Esbjorn Svensson. And it also didn’t seem to be an evolution of Bugge`s „New Conception of Jazz“. Yet it’s probably fair to say that Rymden´s music was deeply influenced by these journeys and manged to take it to a new and different balance and level. It will be fascinating to hear and see how this trio will further develop. For now, their newly released CD „Reflections & Odysseys“ (a very fitting title) is an impressive statement which they were able to deliver in an outstanding concert in Loerrach, intense for both the playing musicians and their audience, with a start like a rocket.