ENSEMBLE:
TENOR BATTLE
2015
Tenor Battle (2015)
Håkon Kornstad—tenor, tenor saxophone, flute, live looping
Sigbjørn Apeland—harmonium
Lars Henrik Johansen—harpsichord, cimbalon
Per Zanussi—double bass, saw
Øyvind Skarbø—percussion
Håkon Kornstad has the rare ability to head straight for whatever is most important in a musical expression. When I first heard this recording, I thought: This has not been done before. Not so beautifully. Not so delicately. A great deal of thoughtful work is needed to connect so directly to our senses.
One of the world’s finest saxophonists now reveals himself as an utterly unique and deeply personal singer. Rarely, if ever, has a performing artist managed to combine two vastly different musical expressions at such a sky-high level, and at the same time made the total output seem so clear and coherent.
KETIL BJØRNSTAD
In the fifties, the jazz saxophonists competed in playing fastest and loudest and called it a Tenor Battle. In Håkon Kornstad’s new ensemble the expression takes on a rather different meaning, when he mixes his newfound tenor voice with his unique tenor saxophone playing. The UK jazz magazine JazzWise writes this about a recent concert in St Martin-in-the-fields: “Håkon Kornstad and his ‘Tenor Battle’ troupe have fashioned a triumphant Bartok-reversal, the successful contextualising of high-end tropes into the folk firmament.”
And the sound? Caruso meets Coltrane? Garbarek meets Björling? On Tenor Battle, opera arias by Massenet, Gluck and Bizet, as well as classical art songs are mixed seamlessly with Scandinavian Jazz. Håkon Kornstad sings in Italian, French and German, bringing back memories of old world salon music. And then he plays the saxophone, with his distinct warm sound. Sigbjørn Apeland’s harmonium sounds like a blend between strings and wind instruments, and drummer Øyvind Skarbø plays nuanced on arias that were never intended for drums. Harpsichordist Lars Henrik Johansen fits in naturally with his baroque instrument on romantic pieces, while double bassist Per Zanussi also plays the singing saw, without it ever turning circus-like.
The musicians in Kornstad’s ensemble have their backgrounds in jazz, folk and classical music. They have worked intensively with the freedom to improvise and arrange, be it instrumental numbers or classical arias—respectfully and playfully at the same time. Four years have passed since they first met as a group, and their intention has been to let the group sound find its way organically over time, through rehearsals and concerts throughout Norway.
This beautiful and truly genre-bending jazz album is also the debut of Håkon Kornstad as classical singer. Enjoy Tenor Battle!
Jazz and operatic tenor are not the most obvious bedfellows. In fact on paper you might think, hmm, this could very easily sound dreadful. But Kornstad has found a way of presenting the unlikely alloy, with perfectly suited band, in such a way that it not only works, it feels like each enhances the other still further. Copper and tin have their own charms, but bronze has a certain lustre that is irresistible.
– Peter Bacon, The Jazz Breakfast
Opera meets Scandinavian jazz seamlessly
– John Fordham, The Guardian (★★★)
Hans prosjekt er en musikalsk berikelse for så vel dem som svermer for det klassiske som dem som liker når musikere strekker seg mot det ukjente. Det er noe magisk, nærmest tidløst og samtidig nyskapende og utfordrende i måten de turnerer disse sangene på.
– Svein Andersen, Aftenposten (★★★★★)
Med «Tenor Battle» har saksofonist og operasongar Håkon Kornstad levert eit eineståande skaparverk.
– Roald Helgheim, Dagsavisen
I ei tid då nettet fløymer over av gitaristar, bassistar og trommeslagarar som har teknikk til å ta pusten frå ein, men inkje har å melda, er det gjevande å lytta til ein musikar og eit ensemble som har 20 i både stil og innhald! (…) Ei av dei beste så langt i 2015!
– Lars Mossefinn, Dag og Tid
Den er antakelig unik i verdensmålestokk, men når «Tenor Battle» likevel er større enn summen av de to tenorer, er det fordi Kornstad og ensemblet har utviklet det som lett kunne blitt et «one-man-show med komp» til et helt og bokstavelig talt makeløst uttrykk. Utrolig mye må gå galt om ikke «Tenor Battle» blir eksportvare i enda langt større grad enn hva fenomenet allerede er.
– Terje Mosnes, Jazznytt
Tenor Battle er det vakreste slaget jeg er blitt utsatt for på lenge.
– Arne Guttormsen, Vårt Land
Å gjøre en slik kombinasjon av jazz og opera kunne blitt en solid katastrofe. Vi har hørt det tidligere, når kjente, kvinnelige operasangere har forsøkt seg på jazz, men har er alt så perfekt og nydelig utført, at det er en fryd. Og man kan nesten høre at det har gjort Kornstad godt å lære seg å synge, ikke minst når det gjelder hvordan han spiller saksofon.
– Jan Granlie, SaltPeanuts
han balanserer de ulike elementene på en måte som bare kunstnere med en sjelden musikalsk innsikt kan få til.
– Trygve Lundemo, Adresseavisen (★★★★★)
Dette er sterk kost! (…) Det låter utrolig originalt og unikt, og de klarer å ta disse operasviskene, som er fantastisk vakre, og lage sine egne arrangementer ut av dem. (…) Mesterlig gjort.
– Svein Magnus Furu, Kulturhuset NRK P2
dette låter spennende, sofistikert og vakkert. Perfekt til å varme opp hustrige norske stuer fremover, men også en musikalsk tanke av internasjonalt format.
– Audun Vinger, DN
Med sin originalitet, sine kvaliteter både som jazzmusiker og som operasanger, så bør Håkon Kornstad ha alle muligheter til å legge store deler av musikkverdenen for sine føtter. Så bra er nemlig både han, musikken hans og bandet hans.
– Tor Hammerø
I am delighted to present to you the first album of the Kornstad Ensemble. The group was formed in 2011, as I was in the master’s programme at the Norwegian Opera Academy in Oslo. Two years prior, I had discovered opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and started taking singing lessons with Pamela Kucenic—a retired dramatic soprano on Upper West Side. I now wanted to throw myself all into the world of opera, learning how to sing to my tenor instrument’s full potential. Singing classic opera roles in acoustic theatres was my goal then—and it still is!
Once you discover something major that brings you onto a new journey in life, it’s so easy to forget what you already can do… For many months, I didn’t practice the sax anymore, as I wanted to establish a basic singing technique before messing it all up with saxophone. After a while, though, I got the urge to form a small ensemble where I could mix my jazz playing with my newfound tenor.
Bassist Per Zanussi and I had worked together since we were both jazz students in Trondheim back in 1996, and he was the first musician who came to my mind for this ensemble. He writes great music for his own group Zanussi Five, and he has also arranged music for theatre and film. In addition, I had played some concerts with a great, young drummer, Øyvind Skarbø. He is an open-minded improviser—and one of his strengths is his subtle colouring with all types of drums. Then, finally, I needed an instrument and a player that would be a good bridge between classical and jazz. I had listened to Sigbjørn Apeland’s fantastic solo recordings earlier, and his harmonium playing sounds like a mix between strings, wind instruments and organ—it instantly brought my mind back to the old world 78 rpm opera albums I had been listening to.
Our first rehearsal was in Bergen in August 2011. I had already picked some arias, and basically, they are the ones that are featured on this album. Stylistically, I wanted to start from a very wide angle, but shying away from baroque music. It would be too easy to resort to the old “trick” of adding walking bass to a baroque aria with “Hit the road, Jack”-changes. Nor did I want to do the typical hit parade of tenor arias. “La donna è mobile” to swing accompaniment—or “Nessun dorma” as bossa nova? No, not in this project. It’s hard to describe what makes an aria fit into our sound. During this process we have tried and discarded many…
This is also why I didn’t write any arrangements. I wanted us to create the group sound together, as we would in a jazz band. Everyone’s style of playing along with musical references is the key to our common musical language. We listened a lot to old opera recordings, and tried to learn the pieces from the original scores. Then came the process of breaking up the original forms and carving out our own versions. How do you add percussion to opera arias when you have no references to listen back to, neither in jazz nor opera? Drummer Øyvind must have had the most difficult job. He kept on trying out different approaches along the way, until he would find something we could all nod our heads to.
One of the first arias we did was “O del mio dolce ardor” by C.W. Gluck, which in fact is a baroque piece. It is also one of the very first Italian antique arias I ever worked on in Pamela’s magical studio in New York. “Je crois entendre encore” from Bizet’s Les pecheurs des perles was the next one. We also quickly found versions for the Tosti-songs, and Strauss’ “Morgen”. We basically set a concert repertoire in two days. French and Italian arias and a German lied. Not exactly the typical classical programme. But nonetheless, songs that we thought fit together, and that we all liked to play.
The next step for a jazz group is taking the music to stage. Playing before an audience is the best rehearsal there is—especially when it comes to spontaneous arranging. Scores blowing away in the wind or a nervous, inexperienced tenor without high notes? We did 5-6 concerts with Tenor Battle in Norway. Every night something new would happen—and we still want to keep it this way, even though we now had found a common language together.
Then, one morning at the opera academy while waiting for a singing lesson in the corridor, I heard someone playing beautiful jazz piano. Could it really be one of the opera coaches improvising in a Keith Jarrett-inspired way? I opened the door out of pure curiosity, and met Lars Henrik Johansen, the guest continuum player in a school production of a baroque opera. Harpsichord—what a perfect “final touch” for our group! It added percussiveness, almost like pizzicato strings, and a new dimension to the sound. But most important Lars is a unique musician with his roots in classical music. He soon told me that he was once thrown out of a classical masterclass because he was improvising too much when playing Bach… In other words—a perfect member of this ensemble!
We now added “En fermant les yeux” from Manon, as well as instrumental versions of Rimsky Korsakov’s “Song of India” and Monteverdi’s “Lasciatemi morire”. Then we did some more concerts together—now as a quintet. One of our early challenges was that opera arias usually have highly varying tempi in facilitating the singer. This is one of the reasons there are conductors… As jazz musicians we strive for a common and steady beat or swing. Now we also had to watch out for long high notes coming from the tenor (myself), depending on my day form…
I am so proud of what we have achieved as a group for this first album. I also want to thank Ole Marius Sandberg and Mats Eilertsen who also have been alternating on the bass chair for the concerts, and had significant input in these arrangements. And Jazzland Recordings, who are releasing this album, and let me follow my own musical path. And Pamela—if we had not met in April 2009, there would be no singing, I am sure.
As a musician and now singer, I strive for those moments when my spine tingles and time stands still. I have had quite a few of them with this group. Now I hope you will have them, too. Enjoy!
—Håkon