Trondheim Jazzfestival 1994 - Bjørn Kjellemyr Kvartett
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.
Kjellemyr had been named Jazz Musician of the Year in 1990, giving him the opportunity to assemble and tour with his own dream band. What is striking now is how completely the quartet already sounds like itself. However new the band may have been, these four musicians play with the assurance of people who seem to know one another’s thoughts a moment before they happen, while leaving each player entirely free to remain himself.
Molvær’s trumpet is already remarkably close to the voice that would become unmistakably his: the tone, the use of effects, the sense that the instrument can occupy a space somewhere between melody, atmosphere and signal. Wesseltoft is equally recognisable, even when the synthesizers themselves date the available palette. His keyboards widen and deepen the harmony, reinforce riffs and then suddenly take flight into those solos where direction and velocity appear to have negotiated some private agreement. Kleive moves effortlessly between drive, offbeat patterns, swing and fractured rhythmic structures, his coordination at moments bordering on the alarming: one limb apparently reconsidering time while the others continue without complaint.
And at the centre is Kjellemyr.
“Rosie,” a solo acoustic bass piece, answers the question of what made him such an extraordinary musician. The instrument seems to sing across itself: chordal self-accompaniment giving way to expressive lines, quick runs, slides, harmonic chimes and fluttering tremolo. It is the shortest of the four pieces and perhaps the most poignant, simply because nothing needs explaining. Bjørn Kjellemyr is there, alone with the bass, and everything is audible.
Elsewhere, the quartet continually finds ways to destabilise whatever territory it appears to enter. “Rant” is built around a huge driven riff and a chord sequence that sounds almost undecided while remaining utterly sure of itself. It pushes relentlessly forward, breaks apart into chaos, settles, threatens to rupture again, then returns to its strange revolving logic.
“Last Dance” chatters and prowls over a tight percussive groove, carrying a distinctly urban, after-dark tension. Kjellemyr’s modulated bass gives it a muscular funk underneath Wesseltoft and Molvær’s solos, while Kleive eventually steps forward himself. The piece keeps moving even when it appears to be standing still, rhythmic information arriving from several directions at once.
“What You Want” takes another route entirely: atmospheric, spacious and meditative, developing through a patient, steady build without settling into any of the familiar shorthand so often attached to Norwegian jazz.
That may be the defining quality of this quartet. Again and again the music approaches recognisable ground, only for someone to knock it half a metre to the left or right, or find something underneath it that lifts the whole thing higher. The freedom is individual, but never solitary. Each musician retains his own musical DNA; the remarkable thing is how naturally those differences interlock.
The recording survived almost by accident.
During the final months of Kjellemyr’s life in 2025, Wesseltoft had been doing a little musical archaeology and discovered the Trondheim tape. He and Molvær visited their old bandleader and played him a few minutes. They told him they wanted to release it.
After drifting off for a while, Bjørn woke and asked again: was it really going to come out?
Yes.
A few days later he asked his partner Guri whether he had dreamed the whole conversation. He hadn’t.
Bjørn Kjellemyr died in the summer of 2025. "Trondheim Jazzfestival 1994" keeps the promise his friends made to him, but it does something more useful - more meaningful - than simply commemorate him.
It lets the band play again.
***
Nils Petter Molvær - Trumpet
Bugge Wesseltoft - Synth - Fender Rhodes
Bjørn Kjellemyr - Acoustic / Electric Bass
Audun Kleive - Drums
Engineer - Sven Persson
Digital transfer - Asle Karstad
Mastering - Audun Kleive
Songs composed by Kjellemyr/Molvær/Wesseltoft/Kleive