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In 1996, Bugge Wesseltoft founded the Jazzland record label to launch his New Conception of Jazz, a project he had been working on for the previous three years. Little did he know that when he released his album of the same name it would notch up huge sales in the European jazz underground, help launch Norwegian Nu-Jazz or that Jazzland would develop into one of the key independent jazz labels in Europe with a roster of artists that today include some of the most exciting musicians on the Norwegian jazz scene.
So in 2006, he understandably wanted to do something special to celebrate the label’s 10th anniversary. But what? Typically he was not much interested in celebrating the past, despite the label's considerable achievements during its first decade, but was more interested in celebrating the present. So he came up with the idea of taking some key Jazzland artists out on the road.
Dubbed the Jazzland Community, the idea was to give audiences a taste of what the label was up to in the here and now. More particularly, Bugge wanted audiences in Norway to hear where the label was doing because despite Jazzland artists gaining a worldwide following (thanks to the label’s association with record giant Universal), they had not played as often as they would have liked in their homeland.
"I wanted to do several concerts in Norway," recalls Bugge. "In the end we played 20-25 concerts, which was great. The tour worked really well, it felt good, we felt everyone had a chance to do their thing, and also the stuff we did at the end of every concert [when the everyone comes on stage to jam] sounded really good."
Such was the success of the concerts and the positive feedback from them that it didn’t seem right to wind the Jazzland Community project up after just one tour. So it was quickly decided to go out on the road more often and plans were put in hand for further tours.
Jazzland Community: Live, is taken from their European tour later in 2006, with most of the album recorded live at Hamburg's Fabrik club. "The tour was going really well, good crowds and they were really into the music, so we decided to do a live album," continues Bugge. "The album is pretty much like the concerts, where I start out doing something by myself - I've been doing solo more and more since I gave up "New Conception..." and I'm working on a solo album. I just start to play and try to work as improvised as possible, trying to do everything from scratch. Then Eivind [Aarset] comes on, playing music from his latest album, sounds really great I think, as it always does with him.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 24 February 2008 )
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