Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra – If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours

Odin

The latest album from Norwegian drum powerhouse Gard Nilssen involves sixteen players, so it is not for nothing that the band is called the Supersonic Orchestra. If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours is a veritable feast for lovers of the Scandinavian jazz scene; but perhaps best of all, there are three drummers and three bass players, so although it mines elements of jazz, there is a serious rhythmic force at work here.

Now I know that this is a live album, but what really stands out is the sheer exuberance, the joy that all the players seem to bring to it. It fairly leaps out of the speakers and the response from the crowd is more than you might expect from a jazz festival.

You can tell that Gard is a fan of jazz, as much the swinging big band stuff of the forties and fifties as more current styles, and the opening sequence of “Premium Processing Fee” kind of sounds like an imaginary jam between Sun Ra and Count Basie. It is the swing of the rhythm section combined with the loose, star-touching horn players that puts it across that way. It feels like the sound of yesterday being updated for today and is warm and inviting, a flash back to when jazz was king.

The extraordinary thing is that considering how many players there are, there is no sign of clutter. People make way for each other when it is solo time, and at other points, particularly around the near silence of ‘Bøtteknott’ you can hear the breathing through the horns as they sculpt subtle, eerie shapes while the rhythm section champs at the bit, eager to fly again.

Having three drummers means that nobody is tied to the beat, so there is plenty of work going on around it, with rimshots and tiny fills adding to the heady air of abandon, and as they veer into “Elastic Circle” you can tell that this is jazz for DANCING. The groove is irresistible and I can imagine a room full of partners being swept up and around, ties flying, quiffs bouncing.

They really know how to invigorate the audience, but the other lovely thing is that on “Teppen Dance”, one of the bassists is given the opportunity to stretch his legs — or maybe it is all of them taking it in turns — but the dexterous manner and dirty fretboard slapping is great. You can hear the strings vibrating with the force and it goes on far longer than I would have expected, much to the joy of the audience. The sinuous horn lines that join in after give a hot, sultry feel, the somnolent drums and mild sashay of the beat adding to the atmosphere.

The rolling drum solo of “The City Of Roses” is full of crashing cymbals and has a mildly nautical feel, and when another bass solo arrives, I have written it is like “cats in trees”! Hmmm. The horns are more playful and chuckling here, like robins scampering though the branches, communicating then hiding. No sound is wasted, although some of the sounds on “Jack” are a mystery to me. What is making them, I couldn’t tell you; but it sounds like someone taking apart a shed and leads perhaps more surprisingly into the final track, the Fela Kuti-indebted Afrobeat groove of “Buytta Bort Kua Fijkk Fela Igjen”. It is hypnotic and a real tour de force for the rhythm section, and an extraordinary ending to what is a real journey though jazz not just in the Western tradition, but all over the place. The sixty-six minutes are over in no time and you just wan to slap it back on and see what you missed because there will always be something.

As a moment caught in time, If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours is a supreme document. A must for any jazz lover but also for any lover of multi drummer line-ups. Essential.