Solveig Slettahjell

Various Artists - Magic Moments 13CD / digitalBest Jazzinfotainment: 16 tracks, 75 minutes of music in the Spirit of Jazz, including Nils Landgren & Jan Lundgren, Wolfgang Haffner,Ulf Wakenius, Solveig Slettahjell, Grégoire Maret, Vincent Peirani & Emile Parisien, Kadri Voorand, Viktoria Tolstoy, Jazzrausch Bigband.Credits: Compilation by Siggi Loch Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Solveig Slettahjell - Cime In From The RainCD / Vinyl / digital Solveig Slettahjell vocals Andreas Ulvo piano Trygve Waldemar Fiske bass Pål Hausken drums At the beginning of the 2000s, Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell and her Slow Motion Quintet made the European jazz scene really sit up and take notice. Her concept, as Canadian critic John Kelman has written, was to take songs from the American songbook and to “slow them down. Way down. [...] She proved that slow, powerful and dramatic need not be mutually exclusive terms.” Her new album "Come In From The Rain" de-monstrates how much those virtues have strengthened and dee-pened in the intervening years. That astonishing ability to concentrate on the essentials of a song – and to express much more with nuances and details than would be possible with volume or bombast– are still Slettahjell trademarks. Together with pianist Andreas Ulvo, bassist Trygve Waldemar Fiske and drummer Pål Hausken, Slettahjell captivates the listener from the outset of the opening title track "Come In From The Rain". They literally pull us out of the rain into their musical cosmos, introduced by Ulvo’s wonderful piano touch, the minimalist drum rhythms from Hausken and the grounding yet playful bass of Fiske. And yet when she chooses to take other directions, they feel just as natural and magical too: Frederick Loewe’s "On The Street Where You Live" from "My Fair Lady" pushes forward with beguiling momentum. The Walter Donaldson classic "You're Driving Me Crazy" has a skippy lightness to it, and the playful incompre-hension she brings to the question “What did I do?” is irresistible. "Now Or Never" by Billie Holiday and Curtis Lewis from 1949 rolls along with a springy shuffle rhythm, and when she launches into a blindingly energetic scat chorus, the listener has the sense that her commitment-phobic lover is surely getting the ass-kicking he deserves. Slettahjell prepares her projects thoroughly and gives them the time they need to mature. “The idea of putting together a new band and of recording this album have been in the making for at least the last three years,” she says. And the technical processes of recording are a source of pride: “We recorded this album live to tape in the Propeller Music Division studio in Oslo. Working in this old fashioned way was such a thrill and gives weight to the interplay and instant music-making aspect of the recording and of our quartet.” There are timeless old tales like Buddy Johnson's "Since I Fell For You" or Irving Berlin's "How Deep Is The Ocean", stories to be rediscovered afresh like Leon René's "I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City", and more recent ones like "Johnsburg, Illinois" by Tom Waits. Waits is one of her favourites, and the inclusion of one of his songs has become a Slettahjell trope. And there are new ones like "So I Borrow Your Smile", her own composition. These songs may come from folk or jazz or pop, yet Slettahjell and her highly accomplished musicians always make them individual, tasteful and authentic. And the subtle way she bends notes, always bringing them to into perfectly true-pitched final focus is nothing short of miraculous. Every time. The vibe right through this album is well-judged, the storytelling is compelling. And how apt to bring the day – and the album – to a close with a deliciously poised, reflective and spacious Thelonious Monk "Round Midnight". When Solveig Slettahjell first became noticed she was an irresistible new force in Euro-pean song. She is now a unique and major presence. Credits: Recorded live to tape at Propeller Music Division, Oslo, January/February 2020 Engineered by Mike Hartung Assistant: Frida Blomberg Produced by Kåre Christoffer Vestrheim Mixed analog from tape using the Tree Audio Generation 2 console Mastered at Propeller Mastering by Morgan Nicolaysen

Various Artists - Fahrt ins Blaue II - groovin´in the spirit of jazzCD / Vinyl / digitalVarious ArtistsTurn up the volume! While the first “Fahrt ins Blaue” (journey into the blue/unknown) album from ACT in 2016 offered classy songs for chilling, a great place just to hang out and relax, the new album “FiB II - groovin' in the spirit of jazz” leads us straight out onto the dance floor. From the moment it opens up, with funky jazz, gritty blues and bucketloads of soul, this compilation sets the tone for a night of partying. It’s after sunset. The DJ is starting to nudge the volume a little higher. The WDR Big Band and its unbelievably tight horn section sets this journey on its way. First there’s a classic from Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, “Moanin”. Then Torsten Goods ‘jumps that train’ and takes things on with a U2 cover, “When Love Comes To Town”. Its disco bass-lines and Wolfgang Haffner's in-the-pocket groove make it the perfect antidote to any lingering stiffness or formality, with Swedish singer Ida Sand stepping into the role which B. B. King had on the original. She’ll be singing a duet later with Raul Midón: “He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother”. Viktoria Tolstoy takes us back to the easy vibe of Herbie Hancock's disco/pop phase with her take on “Paradise” from the 1982 album “Lite Me Up!” And then there are Joe Sample and Nils Landgren, and they’re really going for it. The US legend - who died in 2014 - on Fender Rhodes and Mr. Redhorn, don’t actually have a Hollywood connection between them; but what they do connect with is heavy grooves. No frills, no fuss, they take “Don't Take My Love To Hollywood” and completely nail it. An ACT classic from 1997 follows on seamlessly: “Joshua", from Bernard Purdy's “Soul To Jazz" is pure gospel funk. Magnus Lindgren's “Penny Blue” was created 20 years later. This, the newest track on "FiB II" is the finest soul-jazz, made in Stockholm. And then it's time for southern soul, the genuine article: Mighty Sam McClain, who died in 2015, brings huge platefuls of Louisiana feeling to the table. Youn Sun Nah springs a surprise on us by showing her danceable side in the Paul Simon cover “She Moves On” with US guitarist Marc Ribot. Then there’s a short pause for breath: Solveig Slettahjell's “Holy Joe” adds a soft bluesy note and Muriel Zoe sings Steely Dan's “Rikki Don't Lose That Number”, laid-back country-style. That’s followed by Nils Landgren rocking out with the complete Funk Unit. Randy Brecker on flugelhorn, supported by the WDR Big Band, blows a storm on Lee Morgan's soul-jazz hit “The Sidewinder”. That rousing finale seems to signal the end of the DJ set, but since they’re all still baying loudly for an encore… Pete York’s fat organ-funk provides it. And that really is everybody’s very last dance. “Fahrt ins Blaue II.” Fourteen tracks for grooving and boogying. You feel good, you dance the night away and you certainly don’t hold back. It’s music which gives those dancing feet energy they never knew they had. Let the summer begin.Credits: Compiled by Marco Ostrowski Cover art by Rupprecht Geiger Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Solveig Slettahjell - Trail of SoulsCD / Vinyl / digital Solveig Slettahjell vocals Knut Reiersrud guitars & harmonica In The Country : Morten Qvenild piano & synths Roger Arntzen bass Pål Hausken drums & percussion “Connecting the unexpected” is the motto of Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic, a concert series curated and produced by ACT label boss Siggi Loch, which began in December 2012. A carefully selected unifying theme runs through each programme, alongside imaginative juxtapositions of musicians brought together specifically for the occasion, in some cases for the first time. This formula has not just proved a hit with audiences; musicians have also taken to it with a particular zeal. The artists and the spectators who attended the ‘Norwegian Woods’ edition of the series in March 2014 experienced an amazing evening. Loch had assembled the A-team of Norwegian jazz, and created the unexpected by combining them with a guest artist from a different musical realm: Solveig Slettahjell was one such artist welcomed back into the fold. The ACT label released her early albums, establishing her international reputation as one of Europe’s leading jazz vocalists. Here she was partnered up with In The Country, the piano trio involving her close friend Morton Qvenild, pianist, sonic explorer and also a member of Solveig Slettahjell‘s Slow Motion ensembles. The real surprise that evening, however, came from adding the blues guitarist Knut Reiersrud. He had been on Siggi Loch's radar for quite some time, and on this occasion was having his first ever meeting with Slettahjell and her crew. It turned out to be an ideal combination. The evening was a celebration of everything that had made the Nordic sound so attractive and successful for many decades. On the one hand there was the elegiac, bluesy side, inspired by the spirit of indigenous folk music; on the other the electronic, the rhythmically daring and the experimental. The participants in ‘Norwegian Woods’ were certain that, somehow, they needed to continue and develop what they had started. Above all, the earthy blues guitar of Reiersrud, with its ethnic influence, had been a revelation all round. Solveig Slettahjell, although signed to Universal, came up spontaneously with the wish to record a studio album with these musicians. Loch already had a suitable idea and concept in his mind's ear, and suggested that they might link the American gospel and spiritual traditions with the Norwegian sound aesthetic under the banner of “Trail of Souls.” Then followed a huge amount of careful preparation and several rehearsals in Morten Qvenild's private studio, after which all the musicians ended up in the celebrated Rainbow Studio in Oslo to give the original idea a definitive shape. All eleven tracks, with the exception of the final number, a song composed by Reiersrud, are blues and gospel classics in the broadest sense. There are three from stars of pop and soul music - Bill Withers “Grandma's Hand”, Peter Gabriel's “Mercy Street” and Leonard Cohen's “Come Healing” - but beyond those the others are the kind of tunes only familiar to initiates such as Reiersrud. “We did all rummage through our record collections and chose a few old work songs and spirituals together,” says Slettahjell, “but Knut is the really knowledgeable one among us.” This is something Reiersrud has already proved completely convincingly on his debut album on ACT, “Tears Of The World,” which he made with the amazing blues singer Mighty Sam McClain. Sadly, McClain passed away on 16th June 2015, at the age of just 72, shortly before the album was released. The procession of songs on “Trail of Souls” takes in, for example, the emotional traditional song “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child,” and that staple of gospel church services, “His Eye Is On The Sparrow,” and the memorable “Don’t Feel Noways Tired” by the King of Gospel, the Reverend James Cleveland. From older pieces by Blind Willie Johnson, James Anderson and Richard M. Jones – with the evergreen song “Trouble in Mind” - the selection comes up to date with the song “Is My Living In Vain?” by Elbernita ‘Twinkie’ Clark, a gospel star and two-time Grammy winner. All the songs here are given a brand new identity by being taken at a much slower pace than is traditional. Solveig Slettahjell's completely individual soft voice savours every detail of phrasing. Combined with Knut Reiersrud's well-judged voicings, which glitter with their metallic sound, the whole effect is mesmerizing. Morten Qvenild and his trio produce surprising rhythmic accents and a whole panoply of sounds, all the way from wood and clay over spherical surfaces to tough drum'n'bass beats. These musicians' outstanding creativity and their sense of fantasy have shown once again that they truly are Norse Gods.Credits: Produced by Siggi Loch with the artists Recorded by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo, April 8 - 10, 2015 Mixed and mastered by Jan Erik Kongshaug Solveig Slettahjell appears courtesy of Universal Music

Various Artists - Magic Moments 8 "Sing Hallelujah"CD / digitalThe eighth edition of the popular series Magic Moments is a 71-minute musical joyride through the current ACT release schedule, and features not just the stars of the label but also its newcomers and discoveries. The ACT label's proprietor and producer-in-chief Siggi Loch has put together a programme of sixteen tracks, under the title “Sing Hallelujah.” Encompassing jazz, soul, gospel and Afro-American roots music, it is yet another example of the Munich-based label defining itself by the will to be different, and by steering well clear of predictable and well-trodden paths. This is music “in the spirit of jazz,” which slips effortlessly between genres. It is fresh and up-to-date, and refuses to be a slave to any pre-ordained style. Magic Moments 8, “Sing Hallelujah” places the vocal artists of ACT in the spotlight. The collection opens with soul-blues legend Mighty Sam McClain, who died very recently. He is heard here with Knut Reiersrud, the Norwegian guitarist. Reiersrud himself is also heard later on another track with singer Solveig Slettahjell and the trio In The Country. They perform “Borrowed Time” from the album "Trail of Souls,” a CD which marries the American gospel and spiritual traditions with a Norwegian sound aesthetic. The title track “Sing Hallelujah,” a song by Mike Settle, is sung by Torsten Goods. He is surrounded by an all-star band of Roberto Di Gioa, Tim Lefebvre and Wolfgang Haffner, and delivers the song with his characteristic cool and nonchalance. Ida Sand has one track "Hey Hey, My My,” in which she honours Neil Young. The voice of Natalia Mateo "has a story all of its own to tell,” in the words of Die Zeit. Mateo gives “I Put a Spell on You,” - sung in the fifties by American blues singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and later a huge hit for Nina Simone – a treatment which is bound to take people by surprise. Norwegian singer-songwriter Randi Tytingvåg shows her genuine class on “Steady Going,” a song with its roots in American folk and country music. Drummer Wolfgang Haffner in “Piano Man” brings vocals to his “Kind of Cool” group with the powerful soul singer Max Mutzke. The final tracks of Magic Moments 8 are all instrumentals, but they could not be more varied and contrasted. Bassist Dieter Ilg with his regular trio interpret Beethoven; Iiro Rantala plays John Lennon's “Imagine” alone at the piano; saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, a 3-time Downbeat winner in 2015, honours the great Charlie Parker with “Bird Calls. The old cowhand shout of Yippee Ki Yay….in Berlin? Kalle Kallema the Finnish guitarist now makes his home in the German capital and his trio's take on the western classic “Ghost Riders In the Sky,” by Stan Jones and the Death Valley Rangers really does bring High Noon to the mean streets of Kreuzberg. Pianist Frank Woeste, born in Hannover, is a new face on the ACT Label. He has been a major and consistent success in France where he now lives, and where he frequently performs with Ibrahim Maalouf and Youn Sun Nah. Here the singer brings her unique and inimitable voice to “Star Gazer.” “If music be the food of love, play on,” begins Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night. Add the words “... and of life,” and what results is an artistic credo, the philosophy which underlies all that the ACT label does. Siggi Loch and his team have been producing nourishing music for the past 23 years with an unstinting passion and an instinct for quality. This is music which goes straight the hearts and minds of people whose ears are open to the unexpected, and who love good music. “Magic Moments 8” is 100% true to that vision.Credits: Compilation by Siggi Loch Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Various Artists - Magic Moments 7 - Sounds of SurpriseCD / digitalMagic Moments: 16 tracks, over 50 contributors, 70 minutes of top-tier jazz infotainment from the current ACT lineup. Continuity. Trust and vision. Sustainability and unity. Discovering and nurturing talent. Supporting the next generation. These are key components and central pillars of the ACT philosophy, guiding our work for over 22 years: This year, we celebrate 20 years of successful partnership with Nils Landgren. We congratulate rising stars like Vincent Peirani and Emile Parisien, each awarded "Artist of the Year" in France at the Victoires du Jazz. We are delighted by Michael Wollny’s remarkable development into Germany’s leading jazz musician, emerging from our Young German Jazz series — a program that continues to serve as a breeding ground for promising artists such as vocalist Tobias Christl. The fact that even established jazz greats like Manu Katché — whom we warmly welcome as a new member of the ACT family — are now taking notice of our work is a great honor. Nevertheless, we remain true to our mission: above all, to discover the stars of tomorrow.Credits: Compilation by Siggi Loch Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic - Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic II: Norwegian WoodsCD / digital Solveig Slettahjell vocals Bugge Wesseltoft piano & synths (except 2 & 5) Knut Reiersrud guitars & harmonica In The Country: Morten Qvenild piano & synths (except 4 - 6) Roger Arntzen bass Pål Hausken drums A blues guitar introduces the melody, restrained, elegiac and yet full of energy. A clear, female voice takes over, its power potentiated by its uncanny serenity. A piano gathers together the theme one more time before all of them, joined by an additional trio, take it through a mightily dynamic loop until it tapers out almost to nothing in the end. "Ingen Vinner Frem Til Den Evige Ro" is the name of the old Norwegian church song that Knut Reiersrud, Solveig Slettahjell, Bugge Wesseltoft and In The Country transform so fascinatingly into a modern Nordic hymn in the sold-out Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie. It was another one of those magic moments that the "Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic" series so reliably produces. Founded in 2012 and curated by Siggi Loch, the idea was to craft inimitable evenings by means of thematic concentration, but most of all with stirring, often first-time encounters between outstanding musicians. Such were the first concert in December 2012, also available on CD, with the magical trio of pianists Michael Wollny, Leszek Możdżer and Iiro Rantala, and this fourth evening entitled "Norwegian Woods". The recordings were initially designed to be documentations for radio, but the musical result was so convincing that the artists themselves wanted to publish it on CD. Only the input from Mathias Eick could not be used, for legal reasons. The live recording shows as if under a magnifying glass, not only as described above, how a country with only five million inhabitants was able to become the epicentre of European jazz, and dispose over one of the most exciting jazz scenes in the world – and that far away from the established centres of jazz. One of the reasons is the interweaving of their own roots: Norwegian folk music and classical works ranging from Johann Nesenus to Edvard Grieg. This wasn't the intention at first, but the land of the fjords was simply too far off the beaten tour track of American jazz musicians, and that ended up helping to develop an own vocabulary – the typical "Nordic sound" as was made popular by Jan Garbarek et. al. in the early seventies, and that is today something like the DNA of Norwegian jazz. The second key to success is the almost unconditional receptiveness to all kinds of influences. In the relatively small Norwegian music scene, jazzers have no qualms about working with classical musicians or those from the pop and rock genres, something that could be seen compellingly in the "Norwegian Woods" collaboration. Naturalness and lyrical composure on the one hand and eruptions and artistic expression on the other characterise the voice of the evening's musical focus, that of Solveig Slettahjell. The inventor of vocal deceleration and essentialisation employs all that and more in her version of Tom Waits' "Take It With Me". In doing so she is supported by her partner of many years from Slettahjell's Slow Motion Quintet, Morton Qvenild. This ingenious universalist of young Norwegian jazz has already tried everything out; from pop to metal. But since 2003 his trio In The Country, with drummer Pål Hausken and bassist Roger Arntzen has been the undisputed leading force. The structural principles practiced here – soundscapes grow into finely differentiated dialogues, mighty domes of sound evolve into pastel chamber-jazz or electronically embellished sound pictures – come into their own on "Norwegian Woods", especially in "Can I Come Home Now". Pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, just turned 50, is one of the pioneers of the young Norwegian jazz generation, and he represents the two most important directions of modern Norwegian jazz, both dated 1997. With "It’s Snowing On My Piano" Wesseltoft showed his contemplative side, perfecting the elegiac Norwegian jazz on a radically reduced, timeless solo-piano Christmas album (the biggest-selling ACT album to date, with more than 120,000 copies sold). At the same time, with his "New Conception of Jazz" he turned his attentions to things electronic, with the ground-breaking new approach of including contemporary pop elements from deep house, ambient music, drum’n’bass, big beat, soul and funk. On "Norwegian Woods" he illustrates just how fascinatingly he has developed both aspects, for example with the lyrical solo "Chicken Feathers" and the dramatically dazzling jam version of John Hiatt's rock classic "Have A Little Faith". And finally there is guitarist Knut Reiersrud, the oldest, most travelled and yet here least well known of this JABP edition. His playing field is the blues, which Buddy Guy and Otis Rush introduced him to in the USA at the tender age of 18. Since then he has played with stars the likes of Dr. John, Joe Cocker, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Five Blind Boys of Alabama. But if Reiersrud weren't a Norwegian, he wouldn't have that longing for his native sound traditions alongside the American blues legacy, or that insatiable curiosity for other spheres that led him to spend time in Africa, India, Nepal and Iran. His JABP solo "Jargo" is the best proof of this. Norwegian individualists present themselves as a close-knit group at this singular fourth "Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic"; and their country as still the spearhead of European jazz, which has long since emancipated itself from the motherland USA and launched decisive developments of its own.Credits: Recorded live in concert at the Berlin Philharmonie (KMS) Presented by Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker Recorded, mixed, edited and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

ACT, Germany's "Jazz Label of the Year" (ECHO Jazz 2010), impresses with cool show of work.

Solveig Slettahjell and band create an intimate, reflective atmosphere with unique jazz and soul music.

Explore the ultimate anthology of the most exciting Scandinavian jazz voices.

Solveig Slettahjell’s Slow Motion Quintet blends jazz with Nordic elegance. Awarded the Spellemannsprisen for masterful jazz vocals.

"Solveig Slettahjell, with her reinvention of slowness, is as sexy as ever, delivering a Nordic sonic aura that's almost like Norwegian classical music." - FAZ

Solveig Slettahjell’s “Elfenstaub” (Pixiedust) blends enchanting vocal jazz, featuring Sjur Miljeteig and Morten Qvenild.

"Audiophile Highlight" in STEREO: "An extraordinary record."