Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival New York Posts 2025 Lineup
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
Hedvig Mollestad is among the 25 artists DownBeat thinks will help shape jazz in the decades to come.
(Photo: Thor Egil Leirtrø)“Especially in the beginning, when we were kind of searching for ourselves—we were just playing music and we didn’t think too much about, ‘What are we going to make,’” guitarist Hedvig Mollestad said about her eponymous trio as she lounged in the grass outside of her Oslo apartment. “We just kind of made music and played it, and it’s kind of evolved naturally with what we were doing live.”
On stage, the group fills in the cracks between peak ’70s metal, prog and rock-oriented jazz, shifting from Sabbath-esque riffing to Mollestad’s fluid leads, propped up by Ivar Loe Bjørnstad’s truculent drumming and Ellen Brekken’s pressurized bass work.
An aspect of all the guitarist’s varied live settings has been a range of festival-related commissions, one from Vossajazz resulting in the 2020 album Ekhidna (Rune Grammofon). That record, though, expands on the bandleader’s trio—compositionally and in terms of the ensemble members she enlists—even as Mollestad sees similarities between this latest dispatch and previous efforts.
A few cuts on Ekhidna, like “Antilone,” mirror the sort of aggression her working combo has trucked in during the past 10 years. But the second half of the new disc dips into a more contemplative mode and features a lithe solo spot for the bandleader—sparsely supported by electric keys and aptly titled “Slightly Lighter.” It’s a different kind of feature than what Mollestad’s performed in more rockist settings, the tune seeming to narrate a folktale, not an action movie.
“I wish I was playing a lot more abroad, because I would like to play with people that are not Norweigian,” she said, pausing to acknowledge the pandemic’s travel limitations, the convivial community of players she’s embedded herself with at home and aspirations for the future. “Playing with Susana [Santos Silva, the Portuguese trumpet player] on Ekhidna, bringing her into that band with all the other guys—we were all having the same references. ... She came with so many other kinds of inputs and thoughts, and ways of looking at things—just because she was from another place and came from another background.” DB
This story originally was published in the November 2020 issue of DownBeat. Subscribe here.
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
