Jazzland Recordings

When Bugge Wesseltoft describes Bjørn Kjellemyr’s quartet of the early 1990s as the best band he has ever played in, the claim carries some weight.

The line-up alone makes "Trondheim Jazzfestival 1994" a remarkable document: Kjellemyr on acoustic and electric bass, Nils Petter Molvær on trumpet, Wesseltoft on synthesizer and Fender Rhodes, and Audun Kleive on drums. Behind the desk was sound engineer Sven Persson, an essential fifth presence who also had the good sense to record the concert. More than thirty years later, that tape has found its way back into the light.

READ MORE

LISTEN | BUY

“Vente” moves with an easy, understated groove, its soft soul colouring and lightly percussive pulse giving the song a warmth that never quite settles into nostalgia. It is relaxed, precise, and quietly radiant.

Slettahjell’s lyric looks towards Vence, where colour, art, wine and sunlight become a counterweight to winter and the long northern wait for spring. The repeated "vente, vente, vente" gives the song both its hook and its central idea: patience, memory, and the certainty that something will eventually begin again.

LISTEN | BUY

Tradition is often treated as something musicians must either preserve or escape. On "Telling It Like It Is", Lyder Røed Quintet chooses a third course: inhabiting it fully, without apology, disguise or historical distance.
The album continues the direction established on 2024’s Upside Down, drawing openly from the Blue Note sound, hard bop, post-bop, Latin jazz and the melodic directness of players such as Lee Morgan, Nat Adderley and Roy Hargrove. Yet the quintet does not approach this music as period reconstruction. For these musicians, jazz history is not sealed behind glass. It exists alongside the present, immediately accessible through records, streaming services, playlists and the accumulated listening of a generation for whom musical eras no longer arrive in strict chronological order.

READ MORE

LISTEN | BUY