Ensemble Denada

Helge Sunde is a 44-year-old Norwegian trombonist and composer who often works with jazz/classical composer Geir Lysne, sounds as if he checks out Hermeto Pascoal, Django Bates, Carla Bley, and British jazz and TV composer Colin Towns – and who has produced a cracker of a contemporary big-band album with this set. Sunde's Denada ensemble has produced powerful work before, but the balance of moods, melodic variety and arranging ingenuity on Finding Nymo (the sax-playing Nymo brothers Frode and Atle are star soloists) ought to raise his standing outside continental Europe. He throws listeners off the big-band scent with the eerie vocoder whispers at the start, but busy phrase-swapping between the horns, and arrhythmic ensemble riffs with solo-sax wails rising out of them introduce a Django Bates feel. When In Rome is a hooting, swaggering theme with revving engines and street noise, Valse Triste starts like a funeral lament and turns into a demonically waltzing dance, and the title track begins as tentative, sputtery improv, then coalesces into a melody. Guests Olka Konkova (piano) and Marilyn Mazur add flourishes to an already formidable set.

Denada, an album of big band compositions by the talented Norwegian trombonist/composer Helge Sunde, is amazingly complex and original music that brings to mind the work of Maria Schneider. In fact, had I encountered this album in a blindfold test, I would have said immediately that it was a new album by Schneider.

The music of Helge Sunde requires musicians with great technical capacity and ability to sense their position in the musical landscape. Playing the music has been described as a hike in Sundes native western Norway: Even if you know the terrain and can reed the map, you actually have to climb a few peaks, jump over icy streams and pass through steep fjord valleys - without loosing contact with the rest of the hikers. The reward is a magnificent musical view and a new understanding of what a big band can be. The band Norske Store is the ensemble of the East Norway Jazz Centre, and the musicians are personally selected to work with innovation, production and performance of new Norwegian music for large jazz ensembles…