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| Ellington won
early prominence during the late Twenties
when his jungle music band was resident at
a single Harlem club over a period of several
years. By contrast, Pierre Dørge
& New Jungle Orchestra have won widespread
acclaim by never staying in one place for
very long. During 1993-96, they served
as the official Danish State Ensemble –
the first jazz orchestra ever to be thus honored.
Over the last decade or so, NJO has
dispensed joy from bandstands in Accra, Adelaide,
Athens, Valencia, Vancouver, Bratislava, Buenos
Aires, Singapore, Shanghai, Saskatoon and
Tasmania. (Hey, you’ll find an
even more exhaustive list at www.newjungleorchestra.com
.) And as these notes are being written,
NJO is delighting crowds at a weeklong arts
gala in downtown Hanoi. |
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| So after performance
dates in such unlikely jazz hotspots as Siberia,
Indonesia and the Gambia, how did Pierre and
his cohorts end up in a venue as conventional
as Birdland? It happened this way.
In the course of the group’s
seventh U.S. visit (and following an appearance
at a world music festival in Chicago), NJO
flew into New York for performances at Carnegie
Hall and Columbia University – plus
an evening at the West 44th Street club –
as part of a multi-day arts festival called
The Danish Wave. |
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| Fortunately,
the Birdland gig was recorded – and
very well, too. All nine of these tracks
will be familiar to hardcore New Jungle Orchestra
admirers, since earlier versions of each have
been featured on previous NJO CDs issued on
labels like Olufsen, Enja, Dacapo, Steeplechase
and Stunt. But this date deserves special
attention because everything its fans love
about this group – sparkling soloists,
punchy ensembles, vivid tonal colors, rhythmic
drive and generally high spirits – is
on particularly vivid display. |
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| Lost in the
Desert I See a… / Caravan immediately
plunges listeners into a maelstrom, with the
leader’s arrangement pitting section
against section as the excitement builds.
A strong guitar solo leads to a bit
of sparring with Jakob Mygind on tenor.
The familiar Juan Tizol melody doesn’t
fully emerge until nearly three minutes into
the piece, although Lost (Pierre’s bass
ostinato intro) suggests what’s to come.
Kasper Tranberg, Irene Becker and Mads
Hyhne all have their say before the things
quiet down considerably. NJO’s
first recording of this one (on a 1992 CD
called “Karawane”) now sounds
positively tame in comparison to what happened
at Birdland one fine night seven years later. |
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| Again, it takes
a while for the contours of St. Louis Blues
(recorded first by the band in 1984 on “Brikama”
and then again on 1990’s “Live
in Chicago”) to be completely
revealed. After what sounds like a
bit of competitive smooching, there’s
some Latin vamping, a well-shaped Dørge
solo, heartfelt opinions voiced by Agerholm,
Mygind and Tranberg, an intriguing ensemble
passage and an impressionistic piano interlude
which leads quite naturally into the next
track. |
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| The music for
Det koster ej for megen strid , notes Pierre,
was written by Carl Nielsen, Denmark’s
best-known composer, early in the last century.
“But few Nielsen scholars seem
to be familiar with it,” he adds.
“In fact, we discovered it quite by
accident some years ago in an old songbook
during a Christmas visit to Irene’s
mother’s home. And Morten Carlsen
isn’t playing a soprano saxophone here.
Instead, it’s his taragot, an
instrument common in Hungarian and Romanian
folk music. The taragot is tricky to
play because the pitch and intonation tend
to change from room to room and from day to
day, so you can never predict exactly how
it’s going to sound. Maybe that’s
why Morten loves soloing on it!”
(By the way, there’s a somewhat different
– but equally evocative – treatment
of the same piece on “Music from the
Danish Jungle,” a 1996 NJO release.) |
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| In asserting
that Ellingtonian Space is the Place (subsequently
recorded as a studio version for “Zig
Zag Zimfoni”), Pierre slyly hints at
Things Ain’t What they Used to Be .
An on-the-edge Carlsen tenor solo flows
into a complex and joyous ensemble passage
that really struts. And doesn’t
this ten-member band sound far larger at this
point? Following a rather unexpected
modulation, Agerholm provides trombone fills
and Mygind speaks his mind. After a
beautifully conceived diminuendo, Hugo Rasmussen’s
bass takes it out. |
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| The Mooche moves
things even more obviously into ducal territory.
Pierre, Jakob and Kasper solo, with
an invigorating two-beat pulse behind them.
(For alternate takes of this classic,
check out versions on the 1985 album “Even
the Moon is Dancing,” as well as the
Chicago CD, with Irene Becker doing some lovely
work on electronic keyboards.) |
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| So who’s
the Jim being celebrated in Stranger Than
Jim (first heard on the 1998 CD entitled “Giraf”)?
It’s the film director –
one of Pierre’s favorites – whose
last name is Jarmusch. Bent Clausen’s
crisp brushwork opens the proceedings.
Hugo takes a powerful solo with the band chanting
behind him. As the leader’s guitar
takes over, the tension builds still further.
Capping the performance is some truly
astounding ensemble work. |
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| NJO has recorded
Irene’s Monkey Forest, redolent of Bali,
twice before: on “Different Places,
Different Bananas” in 1988 and on the
Chicago album two years later. Ghanaian-born
percussionist Ayi Solomon (an NJO member since
1984, when he arrived in Copenhagen with a
touring reggae band) is turned loose on this
one. Things conclude with Pierre soaring
over an ensemble passage so powerful you’d
swear they sneaked an extra half-dozen musicians
onto the Birdland bandstand. |
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| Ellington’s
appealing harmonies make Black Beauty (also
heard on “Karawane”) a real treat.
Hugo limns the melody. Morten
unlimbers his taragot once again, Agerholm,
Mygind and Hyhne solo, with Kenneth handling
the growl work further on. Then Clausen
brings all this fox-trotting to a conclusion
with a perfectly placed truncated cymbal. |
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| NJO loyalists
will already have heard Lions of Shanghai
on the 1997 CD called “China Jungle.”
Carlsen, on tenor this time, is followed
by Hyhne and Tranberg. Toward the end,
a melody with a Chinese character does indeed
emerge. Then following a quiet moment
featuring cornet plus bass, the whole band
lopes toward a highly satisfying conclusion. |
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| As you might
guess, this is no casually thrown-together
pickup band. Several members (Carlsen,
Agerholm, Becker and Clausen) have actually
been members since the first NJO album was
released on Steeplechase in 1982, with Hugo
joining soon thereafter. Mads Hyhne
is the newcomer, having been aboard for a
mere four years at the time of this Birdland
date. (Incidentally, if you’re
uncertain about how to wrap your tongue around
various of these Danish names, you may properly
regard Pierre’s post-set credits as
authoritative.) |
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| New Jungle Orchestra
is a band that travels lean but never mean.
What’s more, their enthusiasm
is highly contagious. Best of all,
they’re doubtless coming soon to a jungle
near you . |
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