Jeppe Zeeberg: Occasionally, Good Things Do Happen
Jeppe Zeeberg
Jeppe Zeeberg (b. 1988) could make a straight-ahead album of jazz or classical music—the Danish pianist, composer, and bandleader certainly has the skills—but that's simply not his nature. Much as he did on Universal Disappointment (2019) and The Full Experience (2021), the Copenhagen-based court jester embraces irreverence and humour on his eighth album. In doing so, the provocateur carries on a long-standing tradition associated with Frank Zappa, Carla Bley, and others that enlivens music of sophistication with tomfoolery (representative of the album, one track's titled "I Dreamed I Saw Monkey Business and Ginger Rogers was Missing”). If anything, the world could do with more artists prone to giving their bands cheeky names like the Absolute Pinnacle of Human Achievement, one of multiple units led by Zeeberg.
Drawing so much attention to his music's wackier side risks underecognizing its musicality. Performed by his regular quartet—the leader on piano, organ, and synthesizer joined by fellow APHA members guitarist Henrik Olsson, bassist Casper Nyvang Rask, and drummer Søren Høi—and different outfits of varying size, the eight tunes on Occasionally, Good Things Do Happen offer a spirited, life-affirming respite from the abundant woes of the world. Multiple genres collide on the set, from jazz, pop, country, and rock to heavy metal and everything in between, all it crafted with care and affection. Written specifically for the musicians involved, the album features some of Scandinavia's best, among them Julie Kjær and Ned Ferm on woodwinds, horn players Erik Kimestad and Petter Hängsel, and drummer Oliver Laumann.
You know you're in for an irreverent ride when the album begins with what sounds like a computer-generated voice introducing us to the recording (that same voice returns near the end of “Puritanical Pleasures” to pitch one of Zeeberg's other albums) and follows it with a boisterous septet treatment of “It's That Seahorse Again.” As the musicians romp through the gleefully wailing tune, the leader peppers the groove with pipe organ and other keyboards, Ferm delivers a fiery tenor sax solo, and trombonist Hängsel contributes bluster to what would be a perfect festival set-opener. Up next, “Rungsteds Lyksaligheder” is a laugh-riot, hiccupping wildly from vaudille-esque moments to cranium-crushing metal.
Zeeberg's quartet dips its toes into prog-metal on “Half Man, Half Sweden,” some moments recalling Primus and others Yes at its rawest, while a different quintet configuration attempts something as hellacious on “It Must Have Been Lunch (But It's Over Now).” Laumann and Olsson lead the charge, but room's made for a wild, finger-blistering piano solo by Zeeberg too. Relentless channel-surfer “Puritanical Pleasures” switches between cheesy elevator music, heavy rock-riffery, and rousing country music like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Elsewhere, Zeeberg might have been listening to the old standard “Young at Heart” before penning the title tune, seeing as how one of its melodies seems to have snuck into this sunny album closer (don't miss its anthemic, “Hey Jude”-styled outro either), and, with horns and organs blaring, no one will mistake Zeeberg's “Frühlingsglaube” for Schubert's. One look at the Zeeberg photo at his Bandcamp page and you know what you're in for. Hair wild and bow tie askew, the pianist might be sitting for a portrait at a Zürich dada club in 1915. In that regard, he looks exactly like his music sounds. Think of Occasionally, Good Things Do Happen as a refreshing forty-one-minute antidote to too-serious times.September 2023