Jazz artist Stuart Macbeth compares notes with Oslo pianist Tord Gustaven, at the start of a series of Nordic-inspired Oxford jazz nights

I’d describe myself as a chamber jazz musician,” says Oslo pianist Tord Gustaven. The soft spoken 46 year-old has just released his seventh album, What Is Said, on Munich’s ECM label.

His previous ventures with trios, quarters and ensembles have won widespread critical acclaim. Yet his sparse Norwegian brand of jazz is as about as far removed from New Orleans as you could imagine.

“I’m influenced by Ravel and Shostakovich,” he admits cautiously,” and I also listen to Persian music, Flamenco and the Blues. When I’m at home I am much more likely to put on chamber music and folk music from different parts of the world than I am to jazz. But they’re all of equal importance alongside my own Norwegian folk heritage”.

It is Norwegian Church music in particular that formed the starting point for his seventh set.

“I personally feel deeply connected with my upbringing in the Norwegian church and my Lutheran roots” he asserts. “Making this album was a search for authentic expressions of who I am here and now, and what I am longing for.”

Tord explains further: “To me, these Norwegian hymns are my “jazz standards”. They require reaching deeper into my spiritual being than the typical jazz canon.”

The show is the first of a series of Nordic-themed concerts presented by Oxford Contemporary Music.They include Folk Conexions, a collaboration between another Tord – Knudsen – with Garth Knox, and Unni Løvlid, at the North Wall Arts Centre on April 9; Arve Henriksen’s Places of Worship at the Holywell Music Room on May 11, and The Arild Andersen Trio, featuring Tommy Smith & Paolo Vinaccia also at the Holywell, on May 20.

The season concludes at the Holywell in November with Thomas Stronen’s Time Is A Blind Guide.

Gustaven describes his music as “a musical journey,” which, he says, undertakes “a search for stripped down, essential beauty.”

Tord is joined on the set by long-term collaborator Jarle Vespestad on drums, and vocalist Simin Tander. Tord met her for the first time in 2014. “When I met Simin I was drawn to the warmth of her voice,” he recalls,” and I enjoyed listening to all her solo albums.

“What struck me were the intriguing textures and timbres in her sound, her phrasing and her combination of melodic clarity and improvisational skills.”

Simin’s voice is the lead instrument on the set, and her multilingualism became a driving force as the project developed.

“Simin is half Afghan and half German, with a Catholic mother and Muslim father” Tord elaborates, “so she situates herself in a non-dogmatic open-minded kind of spirituality. Looking at my own background in the Norwegian church and working alongside Simin, I have discovered multiple parallels between the mystical traditions of our different cultures.

“This really set the stage for What Is Said. The album is like a sincere and authentic dialogue that comes from within.

Tord has been determined for the interplay of the new trio to help him to reach new musical heights. On the album he experiments by combining the sound of his piano with bass synthesizer. “Developing the interplay of voice, drums and myself on piano and electronics is a main passion for me. It is a very cool challenge to cover the bass frequencies myself, from the optical triggers attached to the piano, and from the bass synth.

“I do love playing with acoustic double bass in the band, and I’m sure I will do that again before not too long, but right now the openness, and actually also the fullness and depth of playing like we do without traditional bass, is so appealing.”

The ensemble have re-worked the ancient melodies of their source material, performing them over extended harmonies and drones, and mixing improvisation with faithful rendition: “What we have tried to achieve is a melting pot of all those approaches. Most importantly we ensure that any stylistic variations we make seem to happen naturally.

Oxford Mail:

“With regards to the actual texts of the hymns, we have been really bold with taking what we feel is their core essence. We have transformed and re-interpreted the texts from Norwegian via English, and then done the translations into Pashto. What we ended up with was a collection of texts that can be said to be just as much Sufi poems as they are Christian hymns.

“I really cherish this process and the outcome – it feels like such a meaningful and important reconnection with my own roots in an open-minded spiritual universe.”

Tord honed his craft as a child in his family’s home in the village of Hurdal, about an hour’s drive north of Oslo. Sat on his father’s knee at the piano he slowly began to copy melodies on the keys. “From that point onwards,” he tells me, “I didn’t stop.”

Following a degree in Psychology from the University of Oslo, Tord studied jazz and improvisation at the Trondheim Conservatory of Music. He then returned to Oslo to write his thesis on the psychology of improvisation. His first album Changing Places was released in 2003, and his second The Ground reached the number one slot in the Norwegian charts.

The pianist has subsequently toured the world.

Defying all stereotypes of laziness and excess among musicians, there isn’t a whiff of booze on his tour bus. On a typical tour day Tord and his fellow musicians will play squash, go jogging and painstakingly source “the freshest food and coffee possible, given the logistics of the country we’re in.” They also employ a sound engineer to “reduce stress around sound checks”.

Previous UK dates include concerts at the Barbican and QEH as well as in Manchester, Birmingham and of course, Oxford. Reading WH Auden’s poetry on a previous visit here to the city directly inspired Tord’s 2009 ensemble recording Restored, Returned.

“It’s always good to come back to Oxford,” he smiles excitedly. “the audiences we find here are always very warm towards us, and very attentive.”

Where and when
Tord Gustavsen: Hymns and Visions, St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road,    Oxford, Sunday. Tickets from ocmevents.org