Norwegian bassist Terje Gewelt reunites with Scottish tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith – the two go back to their days with Forward Motion at Berklee in Boston in the 1980s.
The quartet is completed by pianist and keyboard player Erlend Slettevoll and drummer Erik Smith, no relation to Tommy – he grew up in Hønefoss near Oslo.
There is a reflective quality to much of the music, with Smith’s tenor carrying the melodic line over Gewelt’s bass and Slettevoll’s spacious piano voicings. The album doesn’t have a heavy groove and is loose enough in feel to allow for a lot of melodic mobility and extensive improvisation grounded in a gloomy Scandi tonality that anyone into Jan Garbarek (who adapted it from Coltrane) will be happy with.
The title track is followed by ‘Woodland’, ‘Sentinel’, ‘Last Leaf Falling’ (with tin whistle a folkloric twist), ‘Landmark’, ‘Oak Wisdom’, ‘Longevity’, ‘Cycle Of Life’ and ‘Ogham’. The writing is predominantly “spiritual jazz”, emotive in some of the most passionate soloing eg on ‘Oak Wisdom’ most. An emphasis on space and relatively uncluttered quartet interplay gives it a certain gravitas. It isn’t portentous.
Smith’s tenor has a poise that reflects the Coltrane and 1970s Jan Garbarek influence that has long been part of his musical vocabulary in his Scottish National Jazz Orchestra days. In the overhead canopy of tree lined traceries there are also echoes of the open, spacious sound associated with his ECM work that branch out organically, particularly his recordings with Arild Andersen and Paolo Vinaccia (who died in 2019). And if you like the Jarrett “Belonging Band” recordings and interpretations like Keith based on these since – particularly Branford Marsalis‘ sterling work in that domain – then surely The Old Tree will also appeal on a certain deep level.
Born in Oslo in 1960 and raised in Larvik, Gewelt began on guitar before moving to electric bass and then double bass. He studied with the aforementioned giant of Scandi bass Andersen and subsequently attended the Bass Institute of Technology in Los Angeles and Berklee College of Music in Boston. At Berklee he formed Forward Motion with Smith, pianist Laszlo Gardonyi and drummer Ian Froman. The group recorded The Berklee Tapes, made in 1984, and later Progressions.
After returning to Norway, Gewelt worked with musicians including Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham and Misha Alperin. He established Resonant Music in 1998 and has released much of his own work through the label.
Slettevoll is impressive as a foil to the main lead lines and adds his own often significant touches in a dynamic way. A graduate of the jazz programme at the Trondheim conservatoire, the 44-year-old pianist surfaced in the mid-2000s as part of the exciting Trane inspired outfit The Core. Slettevoll was on Gewelt’s tremendous 2022 trio date Dusk Till Dawn alongside long time Norway residing Englishman the sax and bass clarinet icon, John Surman whose must hear work down the years includes his significant role found on John McLaughlin’s late-1960s classic and debut as a bandleader the ferociously compelling Extrapolation.
Marlbank previously reviewed Then and Now, Gewelt’s stunning collection of recordings made between 1998 and 2022 which is textbook bass and an album that should be required listening for any student of the instrument who wants to inhabit this idiom and compose in its wake. It brought together Gewelt with musicians including Karin Krog, John Surman, Billy Cobham, Christian Jacob and George Garzone.
The Old Tree is superb.The appeal is in the familiarity between Gewelt and Smith but also found in the space given to the quartet and the way the folk inflections sit within the contemporary jazz setting so naturally.
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