feature photo: Juliane Schutz
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten is a bassist we’ve visited in this space from time to time almost from the very beginning of this site. That’s because he loves to play on the experimental fringes of jazz, and we love to hear that kind of stuff. Here’s the first time looking at Ingebrigt Håker Flaten as a composer and bandleader, and it’s high time, because Håker Flaten makes jazz that’s uncommonly powerful, confrontational and graceful in equal measures.
Håker Flaten’s conduit for rendering his compositions lately has been his (Exit) Knarr ensemble, first put together for the Vossa Jazz Festival in 2021. This group has put out their second long player in October 2024, Breezy.
(Exit) Knarr is a septet, which is large enough for these cats to cause a big ruckus but small enough to stay nimble. That nimbleness comes in real handy, because the sheer amount of stylistic and cultural ground Flaten covers in his compositions demand that. Aside from American guitarist Jonathan F. Horne, everyone in the combo hails from Scandinavia: Mette Rasmussen (alto sax), Oscar Grönberg (piano), Karl Hjalmar Nyberg (tenor and soprano sax), Erik Kimestad Pedersen (trumpet) and Olaf Moses Olsen (drums). American-based Håker Flaten is a native of Norway.
Breezy is named for the late close friend jaimie ‘breezy’ branch, a fellow audacious musician who had her own approach while regularly testing the boundaries of jazz and improvised music, coming up with new ways to blend it with other music forms. Håker Flaten didn’t make a branch record, he’s got his own approach. But the brashness and lack of self-imposed constrictions are the same.
“Free The Jazz” was the advance single from Breezy – a reconstruction of Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” – alternating three-note riffs that possess the nerve of out-jazz and the drive of rock, and a lot of both is coming out of Rasmussen’s uncompromising saxophone. True to another idol, Cecil Taylor, the song emerges from the chaos with moments of melodic clarity.
As tribute to a fallen colleague, “Breezy” doesn’t come from a place of sadness. The first half resembles Journey in Satchidananda-era Alice Coltrane with a classic Mingus type of chorus added. The second half bursts open into sixties modern jazz that spills over into European free jazz territory. It’s not necessarily something Branch has done but she surely would have loved it for its confluence of prettiness with unruliness.
“Dylar” brings West African folk forms to jazz in a way that’s rarely been this successful since Bengt Berger’s Bitter Funeral Beer, and in the process underscores the critical connection between African music and spiritual jazz.
“Hilma” exemplifies the peacefulness of nature, like a mountain vista, a sunny meadow or a gently flowing creek. The phased build-up from that serenity leads to an Elvin Jones swing from Olsen and culminates in a grand horn chart and an audacious, straight rock solo brought by Horne. Sparks fly all over the place on the raucous “Ability,” where Nyberg on soprano sax spars furiously with Horne’s guitar and Joakim Rainer Petersen is brought in to add an interstellar synth that assists in gently landing the song on the runway.
By distilling from ambitious artists like the Coltranes, Anthony Braxton, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and others, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten was able to achieve his own far-flung ambitions with Breezy.
Breezy is now available from Håker Flaten’s Sonic Transmissions Records. Pick it up now from Bandcamp.
*** Ingebrigt Håker Flaten CDs and vinyl on Amazon ***
- Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (Exit) Knarr – ‘Breezy’ (2024) - December 26, 2024
- Takuya Kuroda – ‘Rising Son’ (2014, 2024 reissue) - December 25, 2024
- Ivo Perelman’s Sao Paulo Creative 4 – ‘Supernova’ (2024) - December 23, 2024
