Midwest

Description

Avec Midwest, Mathias Eick proposes a collection of intensely melodic original compositions. He invites us on an imaginary journey starting from Hem, the small Norwegian village where the trumpeter grew up, to arrive in the vast plains of Dakota in the American Midwest. It was in the Midwest that hundreds of thousands of Norwegians traveled by boat in the 19th and early 20th centuries, naturally taking their music in their luggage. In the same spirit, Eick, a Norwegian improviser-composer strongly influenced by North American jazz, reintegrates colors and textures from his native popular music into these new compositions. At the forefront of the ensemble, he is supported by the brilliant violinist Gjermund Larsen, who has his roots in the Norwegian folk tradition. Trumpet and violin enter into a dialogue and rise above the brilliant rhythmic section of a most lyrical John Balke, while Helge Norbakken momentarily finds impulses that suggest tribal drums or bison hooves, and the ingenious Mats Eilertsen helps to stimulate the whole.