Bagland: States of Being
Jaeger Community

Fauna 5: Haptics
Jaeger Community

Musicians routinely express distaste for genre categorization, preferring instead that their art be broached without the delimiting imposition of labels. Even so, the term chamber jazz naturally springs to mind as States of Being, the fourth album from Bagland and its trumpeter and bandleader Jakob Sørensen, plays. The ethos and sensibility of jazz is certainly present in the solos on the ten-track recording; however, when they do arise, they emerge from the fabric of the compositional design and with concision—no epic individual flights here. It's refined music fashioned with great care and deliberation, though never so much that the results feel constricted or bereft of energy.

It's telling that Bagland's release and Fauna 5's debut album Haptics come from the Danish imprint Jaeger Community. Both feature the label's founder and overseer Mathias Jaeger on keyboards; more critically, both albums attest to the community spirit of the Danish jazz scene. It's the kind of imprint where it's not uncommon for an artist to both lead an ensemble and appear as a member in another's. Bagland guitarist Alex Jønsson, for instance, plays on States of Being but also issued his own Heathland release in 2020, a trio set featuring Fauna 5 members Andreas Skamby on drums and bassist Jens Mikkel Madsen. Cross-pollination is fundamental to this fertile Nordic jazz scene.

Consistent with that community spirit, Sørensen is one of five writers responsible for the material on the Bagland release. The trumpeter's credited with the opening track, while Jaeger (synthesizer) wrote three, Frej Lesner (drums) four, and Jønsson (guitar and pedal steel) and Frederik Sakham (double and electric basses) one apiece. Enhancing the quintet are guests Josefine Opsahl and Anna Jalving on cello and violin, respectively. States of Being picks up where the band's previous release, 2019's Cirkel, left off and builds on it with adventurous playing developed during a 2020 Finland tour. Electronics play a conspicuously larger role on the new album, but Bagland's affinity for lyrical melodies, folk-inflected themes, and a generally serene ambiance remains firmly in place.

The moody title cut ushers in the album on a sultry noir-ish vibe, the leader's burnished horn at the forefront with the soft wail of Jønsson's pedal steel alongside. A trumpet solo surfaces midway through, but the performance is more about the atmospheric scene-painting by the members. Sweeping synthesizer textures give “Amber Blush” a spacey character at the outset before a pulsing groove locks into place and the music lunges forth. After the low-pitched moan of Jalving's cello makes an appearance, Sørensen moves into the spotlight to lead a muscular charge oozing a techno-like intensity. The slow, swooning lope of Sakham's “Voyeur” is similarly enhanced by the strings' lustrous presence.

As much as Bagland's a quintet, Sørensen's clearly the leader, as time and again, his breathy trumpet's the organizing element around which the others cluster. In Jønsson, the trumpeter's got an excellent complementary partner (check out his e-bow-like playing on “Larval Motion”), and both benefit from the vibrant foundation the others generate. Bagland's identity is very much its own, even if it's hard to not hear a Zawinul character in Jaeger's synth solo in “Larval Motion.” One also might detect an occasional hint of Tomasz Stanko and Nils Petter Molvær in Sørensen's playing, but his voice ultimately registers as his own. Interestingly, the title of one Lesner track, the improv-styled rumination “We've Been Friends for a Long Time Now,” might be taken as a general statement about Bagland and that aforementioned communal aspect.

Whereas the compositions on Bagland's release come from its five members, the eight pieces on Fauna 5's are all by bandleader and drummer Andreas Skamby. They're a solid batch, and the playing's as strong when he, bassist Madsen (double and electric), and Jaeger (piano and synthesizer) produce a powerful backdrop for saxophonist Jonas Enevoldsen (alto and tenor) and trumpeter Scott Westh. The leader's an inventive skinsmith who grounds each track with driving, polyrhythmic patterns that grant the soaring front-liners ample room to maneuver. Similar to Bagland, Fauna 5 augments its sound with electronic effects and synthesizer, but the group identity remains primarily acoustic jazz.

The unison voicings of clarinet and muted trumpet that introduce “Fauna” imbue the material with an almost Ellingtonian quality, even if the smoothly swinging groove that then settles in brands the track as Nordic jazz of a particularly soulful kind (the synthesizer Jaeger contributes here and to “Dancing Birds” adds a slight tinge of prog to the music). In a move emblematic of Fauna 5's approach, Skamby and Madsen power “Frogeye” with an insistent jazz-funk pulse that allows the front-liners to extemporize freely overtop. Speckled with creature-like electronic sounds, “Hibernation” otherwise finds the quintet out for a serene ballad stroll.

While the versatile rhythm section animates “Animal Locomotion” with a tight, Latin-inflected pattern that's overlaid by a rare acoustic piano solo by Jæger, “Haptic Sensation” unfolds in a series of stop-start gestures that might remind you of Ornette Coleman's writing in places. Living up to its billing, “Play” begins with dialogue between Enevoldsen and Westh before the full band kicks in for a characteristically buoyant and breezy statement. In the set-ender “Instincts” and throughout the disc, Skamby energizes the quintet with drum patterns that while intricate never lack for drive.

July 2022