Artist Profile: Jaga Jazzist

Hey Tron, what article number is this?

During my junior year of college I wrote for the arts page at the Lantern, Ohio State University's official school newspaper. My "beat" for lack of a better word was concert and show previews/reviews and movie reviews. An assignment came in one day described to me (fuzzily, over the phone) as a show for "this Norwegian jazz/rock band" and the first thought that ran through my head was "This will probably be awesome."

Understatement of the year.

I spent an hour and a half that Saturday night being blown away by some of the most dazzling, genre-bending, multi-faceted music I'd ever heard.

The core of the band are the brother songwriters Lars and Martin Horntveth, and over the course of the band's life over 25 musicians have been part of Jaga Jazzist's ranks - full list at Wikipedia.

The band has four studio albums:

• Grete Stitz (1996)
• A Livingroom Hush (2001)
• The Stix (2003)
• What We Must (2005)

and four E.P.s:

• Magazine (1998)
• Airborne/Going Down (2001)
• Animal Chin (2003)
• Day (2004)

and while I'm sure I could buy any number of these online I have this thing where I only buy music from record stores and so I've only managed to find Day.

Musically, I cannot recommend this band enough. I've never heard anything quite like them and the way they flow between jazz, rock, hard rock and pop is mind boggling and flawless. Their sound is huge, and thickly layered without ever sounding ostentatious or gaudy and their shifts in sound and mood convey a dynamic, fast paced feeling even during moments of restrained, slow-tempoed melody.

The band's Purevolume has four sample tracks though I warn you "Day" will probably blow your mind.

Check YouTube for videos of Oslo Skyline and Day.

And to tie this back to my first experience of them, when they play live this band is a force of nature.

Back To Top