I wondered initially perusing this just issued recording what “the weight of bloom” means in the title beyond the literal words.
It’s a curious way to name your album. I guess the band feel some sort of pressure to emerge from the chrysalis of their potential. Maybe even “the weight of bloom” signals that whatever is blooming – youth, love, creativity, a city in spring, a scene or movement – is not simple delight.
I searched on the Jazzland website for some sort of elucidation to resolve this quandary. To no avail! So the above is my best stab. Whisper: what the band is called or even the title is only a sideshow anyway, it’s the music that matters. But come to think of it a band that chooses a subordinating conjunction, personal pronoun and a verb in their three word moniker isn’t standard either. Going to be a bit of a tongue-twister when someone inevitably – a matter of when rather than if – adds “the” before their name. Talk about bathos.
So, hmmm, to cut to the chase and to attempt to describe a very strong, definitely not run of the mill record despite the mysterious album and band names, this is a septet from Norway led by a saxophonist and trombonist.
Some of the jazzers involved are in bands called Schemes Quartet and Lightning Trio both of whom I quite like.
But The Weight of Bloom is even better.
Have a look below for reviews of each so as not to get too arts over elbows in the chronology of releases and attempt to fill the void of meaningful context a bit. Firstly, Embrace.
Then Lightning.
Schemes altoist Brede Sørum is a co-leader of When I Return (WIR) and there is a strong Lightning Trio connection as WIR’s pianist Sondre Moshagen, double bassist and drummer Steinar Heide Bø are all involved.
The Weight of Bloom tunes are by Sørum and co-leader trombonist Jørgen Bjelkerud. I’d pick out the clunkily titled ‘Flower Boy/The Weight of Bloom’ whopper that is part of a 3 piece suite (no not a generously expansive item of furniture) as the obviously most engrossing part of the album where the band take the material “out” that bit more.
The band go that bit deeper around that section of the album. Material is mostly very tightly arranged but there is space for escape into melancholic reveries and motific flights of fancy whether collectively arrived at or individually found.
The tenor sax of Åsne Ausen Fossmark and trumpet of Ola Lømo Ellingsen are neatly enclosed within the ensemble.
Fossmark was on the tremendous Trondheim Jazz Orchestra’s This Is Wuppertal track ‘Clubinger’ referred to above.
No reed or brass instrument achieves dominance nor are there many instances of madcap break out soloing although on the second part of the suite ‘Echo’ the pianist has a lovely not at all zany passage that acts as a kind of parallel universe deftly modulating, laconically accompanied by the drummer while meantime the bassist uses the bow and is exploratory almost musing along as if thinking out loud.
There are only 6 tracks, these are all pretty chunky in terms of time allotted to each and not at all filler as you sometimes find when somebody decides to insert a track that is 30 seconds long and great for alleged “atmosphere.”
The fourth part is nearly 10 minutes long while the last part of the suite is half its length. Tonalities are largely abstract or semi-atonal and weave in and out of bluesy dissonance sometimes. The trumpet solo on ‘Flower Boy’ is more than an étude.
But there isn’t a guideline groove much although on the final track one emerges unexpectedly and suddenly another sound is arrived at which is more retro – I start thinking of Curtis Fuller a bit – my favourite trombonist evah (obvs: ‘Blue Train’).
So for: the 3 part suite, thoughts of Fuller (not the very decent upmarket pub chain of course), and new talent from Norway, in the words of the amusing and not at all stylistically comparable funky Ian Dury 1979 rap Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3:
“Yes, yes, dear, dear, perhaps next year, or maybe even never.”
But whether The Weight of Bloom sinks like a stone or not and only a few hardy souls other than their mums and dads hear it given that so much new jazz never gets heard, such joyful noise from talented newcomers are definitely reasons to be cheerful on this wet and wintry Friday in the ever more war-like northern hemisphere of planet earth.
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