The newly-launched co-operation between the urban club-festival Scope and the Nordic Jazz Network brings five up-and-coming bands to Kreuzberg, Berlin on October 18th.
The Nordic Jazz Comets showcase opens the second edition of the Scope festival, featuring acts from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. This is the first time that the Nordic jazz organizations present their future stars together on international stages. From past years' Nordic showcases and competitions we have gotten to know acts like Megalodon Collective, Katu Kaiku, Intone, Pixel, Skarkali Trio, Skver, Mopo, Isabel Sörling Group, Jazzkamikaze and Ilmiliekki Quartet, to name only a few. The annual event has always drawn a big local audience, as well as gathered together some of Europe's "most wanted" power players in jazz industry.
The bands of the Nordic Jazz Comets 2017 are:
Alex Jønsson Trio
The Nordic Jazz Comets showcase opens the second edition of the Scope festival, featuring acts from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. This is the first time that the Nordic jazz organizations present their future stars together on international stages. From past years' Nordic showcases and competitions we have gotten to know acts like Megalodon Collective, Katu Kaiku, Intone, Pixel, Skarkali Trio, Skver, Mopo, Isabel Sörling Group, Jazzkamikaze and Ilmiliekki Quartet, to name only a few. The annual event has always drawn a big local audience, as well as gathered together some of Europe's "most wanted" power players in jazz industry.
The bands of the Nordic Jazz Comets 2017 are:
Alex Jønsson Trio
Alex Jønsson - guitar, Jens Mikkel Madsen - double bass, Andreas Skamby - drums
Guitarrist Alex Jønsson was nominated for the Best New Jazz Act at the Danish Music Awards in 2013. Now the stellar musician-composer makes his comeback with a new ensemble. With atmospheric compositions, free floating progressions and collective improvisations, they are off on a mission, listening out for scratches, rhythms and reactions that can lead them on to something bigger. The trio has toured Denmark as well as the Nordic and Baltic countries, and November 2016 saw the release of their second album Heart Of Gold.
Charlotta Andersson - electric guitar, Jonas Nilsson - double bass, Natanael Salomonsson - drums
CB3 or Charlotta Burnin' Trio is an instrumental progressive jazz-rock trio with psychedelic vibes from the 70’s. Their improvisation-heavy performances draw inspiration from prog rock giants like Led Zeppelin, King Crimson & Pink Floyd. With cosmic jams, mind-bending impros and epic soundscapes they have conquered stages at jazz clubs, rock venues and psych-festivals since 2013.
Garðar Eðvaldsson - saxophone, Yumi Ito - vocals, Marc Roos - trombone, Sigmar Þór Matthíasson - bass, Skúli Gíslason - drums
The Quintet is actually a saxophone trio with two added melodic instruments. With this arrangement the band is able to create the most diverse music possible, everything from a cappella pieces up to more traditional jazz tunes. With the lack of a chordal instrument, the soloist has even more possibilities of altering the chord progression as the tune goes on.
Christian Skår Winther – acoustic guitar, Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard – double bass, Jan Martin Gismervik – drums, percussion
Monkey Plot’s universe is intimate and unpretentious. It would seem more accurate to call it “music for small spaces” rather than the more formal-sounding “chamber music”. There is namely something straightforward and grounded about the band’s music. The band has released three albums, two of which concentrating on acoustic improvised music, while the latest one, Here I Sit, Knowing All This, took a turn to more rock-oriented, electronic approach.
Antti Hevosmaa - trumpet, electronics, Heikki Selamo - electric guitar, Erik Fräki - drums
VIRTA’s brand of art combines textures of Nordic jazz, post-rock and electronica with avant-garde sensibilities. On their second album Hurmos their compositions have gravitated more and more towards electronic sounds. The trio have charmed the international audiences already at the 12 Points Festival in Dublin, Match & Fuse Festival in Oslo, Pori Jazz in Finland and most recently on the showcase stage of jazzahead! 2017.
Nordic Jazz Comets
Since 2000, the five organizations have worked together in finding ways to bring the young Nordic talents to the spotlight. The co-operation started out as the Young Nordic Jazz Comets band competition, which later on evolved into a showcase at the EJN General Assembly in Trondheim in 2013 and in Helsinki in 2014. In 2015 YNJC visited Tampere Jazz Happening festival in Finland, and in 2016 the show was invited to Umeå Jazz Festival in Sweden. In 2017 the time was ripe to find partners outside the Nordic backyard, and simplify the title as well. The Nordic Network is all about respecting the traditions of jazz, but also re-defining and reinventing jazz by every new generation of artists, so it was natural to find like-minded friends to start a new phase in the Nordic Jazz Comets collaboration.
Scope Festival
XJAZZ Berlin and We Jazz Helsinki presented Scope Festival in November 2016. The quirky festival took place at various locations in the hippest parts of Berlin. Scope’s debut programme sported names like Jimi Tenor & KabuKabu, TBerlin X Helsinki Ensemble (feat. Timo Lassy & STUDNITZKY), Buba Wii Aa, Terzic / Kalima / Grimal, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Noah Kin, Mirel Wagner, Markus Pesonen, Kari Ikonen Trio, Linear John and Jukka Perko Avara. The idea behind the concept is to bring together talent from different backgrounds and to focus on one specific topic. With the first edition it was Finnish music ranging from jazz to hip hop and classical. In addition to genre-crossing, Scope crossed also geographic borders, bringing the Berliner artists together with their Finnish colleagues. The full programme of the upcoming festival in October will be released later this year, but as the opening night suggests, there is a strong Nordic vibe to it.
Partners
Nordic Jazz Comets is a co-operative project of FIH Music School & Iceland Music Export, JazzDanmark, Jazz Finland, Norsk jazzforum and Svensk Jazz. The project partners of 2017 include XJAZZ, We Jazz and Finnish Institute in Berlin.
Nordic Jazz Comets is supported by Nordic Culture Point.
For further information and press accreditation, please contact project coordinator
Raisa Siivola, raisa.siivola (at) jazzfinland.fi
Nordic Jazz Comets 2017
Scope Festival Opening Night
Privatclub (Skalitzer Strasse 85-86)
October 18, 2017 at 7.00pm
Alex Jønsson Trio
Charlottas Burnin' Trio
Garðar Edvaldsson Quintet
Monkey Plot
VIRTA
+ Jam night at COBA Bar
