Skarbø Skulekorps: Skarbø Skulekorps
Hubro

Rising from the ashes of Øyvind Skarbø's trio 1982, whose four-album run ended two years ago with a member's departure, is Skarbø Skulekorps, a seven-member outfit that, based on its eponymous debut, is all about high spirits and good times. Evidence of the project's irreverent persona is on a front cover that shows the group outfitted in cute band uniforms and in the name itself, which, translated, reads Skarbø School Band. It wasn't randomly chosen: the drummer began playing in skulekorps at the age of nine and quickly got used to eclectic set-lists where a Sousa march, Latin confection, and Lionel Ritchie cover might follow one after the other. A similarly open-mindedness informs the music performed by Skarbø's septet, which, by the leader's own description, takes bits of everything that's inspired him and mixes them into something new.

As loose as the band's spirit is, it executes its music, all of it composed and arranged by Skarbø, with serious of purpose. Mostly cut live with only a few overdubs, the nine-track set was recorded over two days in December 2018 by a stellar cast, many of whose names will be familiar to followers of the Norwegian jazz scene. Joining the leader (drums, percussion, vibraphone, banjo) are Signe Emmeluth (alto sax, electronics) and Eirik Hegdal (C Melody sax, clarinet), bandleaders in their own right, plus Stian Omenås (trumpet), Anja Lauvdal (organ, synth), Johan Lindström (pedal steel, guitar), and bassist Chris Holm, with Møhlenpris foreldrekorps adding horns.

The band's cheekiness is on display the moment vocals surface in “1-555-3327,” the title a reference to inventor Nikola Tesla, who died in a hotel room numbering 3327, and the singing courtesy of three members of the Norwegian folk-rock band Real Ones, Jørgen Sandvik, Ivar Chelsom Vogt, and David Chelsom Vogt. Before they appear, though, are warbly electronics, a relaxed funk groove, and pedal steel musings. Despite the jazz credentials the musicians bring to the project, the opener's more a breezy, infectious pop charmer and a promising harbinger of what's to come.

The eight subsequent tracks sometimes play like radio dial-switching, each one digging into multiple stylistic zones and revealing different facets of the band. Over a churning pulse that melds Afrobeat, funk, and soul, horns and guitar riffing power “Turnamat,” with bold trumpet and freewheeling organ part of the exuberant outpouring. Skarbø and Holm work up a low-end backbeat for “Four Foxes” that serves as a springboard for an explorative sax solo by Hegdal; a sultry downtempo groove, on the other hand, animates “Lysets Hastighet” (Speed of Light), whose subdued pitch exudes a soulful, almost R&B quality. A certifiable standout is “Gliploss,” which overlays lustrously swaying rhythms with equally lustrous horns and organ embellishments before turning anthemic. Every track, it seems, offers one surprise or another, the listener in the dark about what's coming before each one arrives.

January 2020