Cecilie Grundt: Illuminate
Grundt Records

Certain jazz formats never go out of style, the piano trio and acoustic quartet cases in point. New generations of players continue to reinvigorate forms born more than a half-century ago without the music ever sounding exhausted or retrograde. When a young musician embraces said forms, the impression created is of a classic tradition being once again revitalized by fresh talent. A textbook example is Cecilie Grundt's Illuminate, the second quartet album from the Norwegian saxophonist. Though the set was recorded on March 7, 2024 at Newtone Studio in Oslo, a blindfolded listener could be forgiven for thinking the session might have taken place fifty years earlier at a studio in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Four years on from the quartet's debut album, Order and Chaos, Grundt, bassist David Andersson, drummer Frederik Villmow, and veteran jazz pianist Vigleik Storaas perform four originals by the leader plus an original by the pianist, “Sunday Blues,” and covers of Eden Ahbez's classic “Nature Boy” and Jerry Brainin's “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” The influence of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonious Monk is present on the album but so too is Keith Jarrett's American Quartet. One of the major selling-points of Illuminate is, naturally, Grundt's playing and sound. She's developed a beautiful, refined tone on the tenor, and her playing eschews the aggressive attack of, say, late Coltrane for an easy-to-embrace delivery that's sonorous and smooth. That she and Storaas seem particularly comfortable in each other's company shouldn't surprise given that the two co-released the album Cecilie Grundt & Vigleik Storaas in 2022 after meeting seven years earlier at the Music Conservatory in Trondheim.

That Grundt has strong jazz roots is easily accounted for. She grew up in a music-loving household that exposed her to Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker and prompted her to take up the saxophone at the age of nine. Developing proficiency on alto and soprano, she eventually gravitated to tenor and has been there ever since. Time-travel to 2015 where, as she was earning her Master's degree in architecture, she was accepted into the jazz department at Trondheim Music Conservatory. Her professional career kicked into gear after graduating in 2018 with her tellingly titled debut album, Contemporary Old School, appearing a year later and Order and Chaos in 2020. The quartet is but one of many Grundt projects on the go, as it's supplemented by the Cecilie Grundt Quintet and the many bands with which she's played, among them Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, ØyvindLAND, Trøndelag Big Band, and Bjergsted Jazz Ensemble.

Illuminate opens with Grundt's aptly named “Freely,” a sprawling rubato exploration inspired by Jarrett's American Quartet and its own influential tenor titan (and one-time Ornette Coleman sparring partner) Dewey Redman. The saxophonist's the stabilizing centre of the storm, so to speak, whose tenor makes its way confidently through a swirling matrix of piano, bass, and drums. Storaas shows himself as adept at operating within an abstract context as a grounded one, and the others are as freewheeling. Monk's influence is palpably felt on “Jumpin' With Bobo,” so much so it's easy to visualize Charlie Rouse honking through the blues-based workout alongside the fez-adorned legend. Grundt's quartet takes to the style superbly with a rousing performance that's infectiously boppish and swinging. Storaas's “Sunday Blues” is deeply Monkish too as it works through its cubistic theme before shifting to a walking groove and bluesy solos from the pianist and the saxophonist. Titled after a place in Grundt's Oslo neighbourhood, “Lille Jacob Park” proves to be a perfect vehicle for the quartet when she delivers its uplifting melodies singingly and the others dig into the jazz waltz rhythms and harmonious progressions with delight. Rollins is cited as an inspiration for the tune, but her playing exudes a warmth and elegance more reminiscent of Paul Desmond than Sonny.

The enduring “Nature Boy” is amenable to any number of interpretations, and Grundt's rather Coltrane-esque treatment gives it an Afro-Latin spin. Arranged by Storaas, the quartet's performance swings engagingly but also exudes an undercurrent of melancholy appropriate to the writing. The group's breezy presentation of Brainin's “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” takes the album out on a replenishing note, with Grundt channeling Coltrane one last time in her robust tone and harmonic ideas. Her sound also lends itself beautifully to the ballad “Circle Waltz,” its title alluding to the fact that its second part is a mirror image of the first. While the technical detail's interesting, the performance more captivates for the expressive warmth of her playing and the pianist's. As they do throughout the recording, Andersson and Villmow provide solid, responsive support to their partners; notice, for instance, how smoothly the drummer transitions on the ballad between sticks and brushes in accordance with the music's dynamic shifts.

November 2024