Oslo Jazz Festival – lonely works differently

Loneliness? Maybe up there, in the Finnmark, in the far northeast of Norway, where only 1.5 people live per square kilometer. But here, more than 1000 kilometers south, in Oslos main shopping street? However, at the dozen election works in the Karl Johans Gate, a party, the program of which only aims to achieve a society in which fewer people feel excluded, is the loneliness party (“EnsomhetSpartiet”).

A new parliament will be chosen in Norway on September 8, but there is no sign of tension or even a heated mood in the streets of the capital. In Norway, unlike in Germany, the parties have to buy their advertising spaces – printed election posters are almost not visible in the streets. The political conditions are stable, the social democrats governing with 26 percent of the votes even expect slight gains. Norway is considered one of the richest countries in the world, the education system as exemplary. For a while, every single musical album produced in the country was funded by the state, and an attempt is still made today to convey an instrument to every school child.

Everything can be heard here: Free Jazz, Folk, Post Bop, Soul, Bigband experiments, nightly jam sessions-and Dixieland.

The investments pay off. These days in mid -August, young musicians can be seen all over Oslo. Whether in the cozy pub “Mr. Nilsen”, where the audience squeezes between the counter and tiny stage, in the hip bar “Juret” near the royal lock or in the club “Blå” on the edge of the Grünerløkka leafy-talents are played everywhere in the nineties, one of the most important indie clubs in the city were stored in the nineties. This year, the “Blå” has pruded its origins as a jazz club: it is one of the main venues of the Oslo Jazz Festival.

A warm evening on the second floor of the warehouse. The second location of the house with the beautiful name “Blå – Himmel” is jam -packed, the air becomes steadily worse. Play on the stage that has not been separated in spatially Henriette Eilertsen.

The young woman is the first Norwegian flutist with a jazz bachelor’s degree. It quickly becomes clear why she has been in various Oslo bands in various Oslo bands and won a prize at the renowned Kongsberg Jazz Festival in 2024. Eilertsens trio with cello and drums creates a dark, almost post-rock-like groove bed, which all the brighter shines on the weightless flute of the band leader. The sound is minimalist, demanding, but never withdrawn, the cello alienated with electronics sounds like a double bass, sometimes like a guitar.

A terrific concert. Also in comparison with the fusion veterans from Needlepoint, which occur one floor lower in the large hall of the “Blå”. Bjørn Klakegg’s gently breathed voice is contrasted with hissing e-piano solos-the quartet is audible on British bands like Soft Machine, which mixed progressive rock with jazz in the 1970s. Klakegg reads his texts while sitting – nobody really rocks here, but it is still coherent.

It only really gets sweaty on this Osloer evening in the “Mr. Nilsen”, the cozy pub. The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio will have played a number of similarly large establishments in its early years in his home country of Seattle. Then came a millions of streamed appearance at the US broadcaster KEXP and the international career of the autodidacts.

Delvon Lamarr started. Lamarr always plays a Hammond organ, heavy as a baby elephant and thus conjures up the heated soul radio of bands like The Meters.

Because the first was sold out months before, the second concert of the evening is already in the “Mr. Nilsen”. As usual, the instrumental cover of Curtis Mayfields “Move On Up” is on the setlist, sensationally cool interpreted by the organist.

The Oslo Jazz Festival did not commit itself to a sound in its 39th year. Free jazz, folk, post BOP, Soul, big band experiments and not one jam sessions; Large international names such as Hermeto Pascoal and Pat Metheny are more the exception.

“I had a more comprehensive approach in my head and wanted to address a larger audience – without becoming commercial,” says Line Juul. The artistic director is in her second year, she gives the interview in the running step towards the festival office, in the background the bell of the tram is swinging. It describes the six -day event as the “little brother” of the big festivals in Molde and Kongsberg, which have existed for 60 years. “Oslo came about in response to it,” said Juul, “but” Jazz traditionalists were launched, in the first few years it was very mainstream. ” Dixieland can still be heard here, in the “New Orleans Club” – but this cozy swing has little to do with the orientation of the Oslo Jazz festival.
Gressholmen is a small island in the archipelago of Oslo, the ferry doesn’t even take 30 minutes. In the middle of the most beautiful nature, Marius Neset plays a solo set here on the terrace of an inn. Since its albums for the German label Act, the saxophonist from the Vestland region has been known internationally. “Breathtaking” is an too often used word in pop criticism, but when technical brilliance and sparking melodic ingenuity meet so spectacular, the reviewer has no choice. A brilliant mini set.

The other locations of the festival are within walking distance in the city center, some are completely sold out. “People should get used to the fact that this can also happen in jazz,” says Line Juul Fröhlich.

A few meters from the “Victoria” jazz club, where the US saxophonist Joshua Redman later had a acclaimed appearance at the festival, there are a dozen election advertising stocks under the trees of the Karl Johans Gate. One belongs to the loneliness party, founded by an always sympathetically laughing mid -forties with her father. Norway should deal with suicide prevention in the long term, according to the website. Strive for a society in which fewer people feel excluded – on a small scale, this utopia has long since become true, in the warm -hearted concerts of the Oslo Jazz Festival.