| Trygve Seim — Rumi Songs (September 9, 2016) |
Trygve Seim — Rumi Songs (September 9, 2016) 
••• A prolific Norwegian jazz saxophonist and composer who has led and appeared on dozens of recordings since the 1990s.
••• Trygve Seim is this autumn somewhat omnipresent, also appearing on three other ECM albums: Mats Eilertsen’s Rubicon, Sinikka Langeland’s The Magical Forest and Iro Haarla’s Ante Lucem.
••• With these four new releases Seim is heard on 21 albums on the prestigious German record label ECM (an unusually large number especially for his young age) including Sangam and Different Rivers with his large ensemble, on recordings with the collective The Source, in duos with Frode Halti and with Andreas Utnem, with the groups of Jacob Young, Manu Katche and more. Rumi Songs is a song cycle composed by Trygve Seim with the poetry of the persian mystic Jelaluddin Rumi (1207~1273), in english translations by Coleman Barks and Kabir and Camille Helminski.
Born: 25 April 1971, Oslo
Location: Oslo, Norway
Genre: Avant~Garde, Jazz, Pop/Rock
Styles: Modern Composition, Avant~Garde Jazz
Album release: September 9, 2016
Recording: February, 2015 (Rainbow Studio)
Record Label: ECM Records
Duration: 54:23
Tracks:
01 In Your Beauty 3:05
02 Seeing Double 8:40
03 Across the Doorsill 4:23
04 The Guest House 5:40
05 Leaving My Self 6:05
06 When I See Your Face 6:39
07 Like Every Other Day 5:41
08 The Drunk and the Madman 5:46
09 Whirling Rhythms 2:46
10 There Is Some Kiss We Want 5:38
Written by:
••• Trygve Seim 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10
••• Camille Helminski / Kabir Helminski / Lidia Saedian 02
Feat.:
••• feat: Tora Augestad / Frode Haltli / Svante Henryson 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10
Credits:
••• Tora Augestad Primary Artist, Vocals
••• Coleman Barks Translation
••• Knut Bry Photography
••• Manfred Eicher Producer
••• Frode Haltli Accordion, Primary Artist
••• Camille Helminski Composer
••• Kabir Helminski Composer
••• Svante Henryson Primary Artist, Violin
••• Sascha Kleis Design
••• Jan Erik Kongshaug Engineer
••• Steve Lake Liner Notes
••• Jelaluddin Rumi Poetry
••• Lidia Saedian Composer
••• Trygve Seim Composer, Primary Artist, Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor)
••• Released on ECM Records August 26., 2016
••• Cover design: Sacha Kleis. Photos: Knut Bry — Tora Augestad, Frode Haltli a Svante Henryson.
Description:
ψ “In the beginning,” says Trygve, “I thought that the mood of the song cycle might be more ‘oriental’ as a whole, more contemplative maybe, but the adventure has been to drive it in different directions, by seeking many of the layers and colours in the poems and using them musically. Sometimes that has been realized really quickly, where it seemed to me that my job was just to write it down. And sometimes it has taken a very long time. The song ‘The Drunk and the Madman’ took me three years to finish. I had a first verse and then a year later a second verse, and the third verse I managed to get just a couple of weeks before the studio session. All that time I was looking for a solution. But I listen to it now and I think it was good to have struggled with it. And it gives me the wish, actually, to continue…”
••• Encouraged by the late soprano Anne–Lise Berntsen, Norwegian saxophonist and composer Trygve Seim has been composing songs based on texts by Sufi mystic poet Jalal ad–Din Muhammad Rumi since 2003 and experimenting with form and instrumentation. This date features his new quartet with mezzo–soprano Tora Augestad, accordionist Frode Haltli, and cellist Svante Henryson. Using formal art song, avant–garde composition, Egyptian classical music, and several other sources as guideposts, this cycle is a stellar achievement for the composer. The texts use the award–winning English translations by Coleman Barks. (“Seeing Double” was translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski with Lida Saedian.)
••• While the pacing here is somewhat linear and the instrumentation sparse, the variety in Seim’s charts — alternately strictly annotated or sketched as lead sheets — creates striking atmospherics and complex melodies and countermelodies for this chamber quartet. Musical surprise is everywhere. Augestad is an excellent focal point; her articulation reveals the mystery, humor, and ecstasy — spiritual and carnal — in Rumi’s writings. When Seim’s horn is on the front line, it expresses itself as smoky, soulful, wispy, and speculative, but the balance among the instruments is remarkable. “Seeing Double” uses tango, traces of French chanson, and folk–jazz. Henryson’s cello offers a pizzicato bassline and a lilting lyric solo as Haltli provides quick fills and sprightly chords and Seim creates a second melody line that touches on folk music. “When I See Your Face” walks a tightrope between Egyptian and Indian modalism and nuevo tango. Seim delivers contrast by making use of Ben Webster’s soulful ballad style as Haltli and Henryson engage in a canny dialogue under Augestad’s vocal. It’s followed by “Like Every Other Day,” an elegant, purposefully drawn–out ballad that connects Brecht–Weill, Jerome Kern, and Norwegian folk music. The outlier here is the brief but startling instrumental “Whirling Rhythms,” which showcases the spectrum of dialogic experience between Haltli and Seim — whose musical relationship goes back decades. The quartet is at its best on the closer, “There Is Some Kiss We Want.”
••• Augestad expresses Rumi’s observations on the deepest of the heart’s longings with affirmation and generosity as the instrumentalists weave a joyful backdrop somehow simultaneously filled with yearning. Rumi Songs won’t necessarily appeal to everyone, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of Seim’s achievement. His discipline, intuition, and imagination in writing for this group make Rumi’s already accessible writings absolutely compelling as song.
Website: http://www.trygveseim.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trygveseimsax/?fref=ts
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| Trygve Seim — Rumi Songs (September 9, 2016) |
••• Trygve Seim is this autumn somewhat omnipresent, also appearing on three other ECM albums: Mats Eilertsen’s Rubicon, Sinikka Langeland’s The Magical Forest and Iro Haarla’s Ante Lucem.
••• With these four new releases Seim is heard on 21 albums on the prestigious German record label ECM (an unusually large number especially for his young age) including Sangam and Different Rivers with his large ensemble, on recordings with the collective The Source, in duos with Frode Halti and with Andreas Utnem, with the groups of Jacob Young, Manu Katche and more. Rumi Songs is a song cycle composed by Trygve Seim with the poetry of the persian mystic Jelaluddin Rumi (1207~1273), in english translations by Coleman Barks and Kabir and Camille Helminski.
Born: 25 April 1971, Oslo
Location: Oslo, Norway
Genre: Avant~Garde, Jazz, Pop/Rock
Styles: Modern Composition, Avant~Garde Jazz
Album release: September 9, 2016
Recording: February, 2015 (Rainbow Studio)
Record Label: ECM Records
Duration: 54:23
Tracks:
01 In Your Beauty 3:05
02 Seeing Double 8:40
03 Across the Doorsill 4:23
04 The Guest House 5:40
05 Leaving My Self 6:05
06 When I See Your Face 6:39
07 Like Every Other Day 5:41
08 The Drunk and the Madman 5:46
09 Whirling Rhythms 2:46
10 There Is Some Kiss We Want 5:38
Written by:
••• Trygve Seim 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10
••• Camille Helminski / Kabir Helminski / Lidia Saedian 02
Feat.:
••• feat: Tora Augestad / Frode Haltli / Svante Henryson 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10
Credits:
••• Tora Augestad Primary Artist, Vocals
••• Coleman Barks Translation
••• Knut Bry Photography
••• Manfred Eicher Producer
••• Frode Haltli Accordion, Primary Artist
••• Camille Helminski Composer
••• Kabir Helminski Composer
••• Svante Henryson Primary Artist, Violin
••• Sascha Kleis Design
••• Jan Erik Kongshaug Engineer
••• Steve Lake Liner Notes
••• Jelaluddin Rumi Poetry
••• Lidia Saedian Composer
••• Trygve Seim Composer, Primary Artist, Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor)
••• Released on ECM Records August 26., 2016
••• Cover design: Sacha Kleis. Photos: Knut Bry — Tora Augestad, Frode Haltli a Svante Henryson.
Description:
ψ “In the beginning,” says Trygve, “I thought that the mood of the song cycle might be more ‘oriental’ as a whole, more contemplative maybe, but the adventure has been to drive it in different directions, by seeking many of the layers and colours in the poems and using them musically. Sometimes that has been realized really quickly, where it seemed to me that my job was just to write it down. And sometimes it has taken a very long time. The song ‘The Drunk and the Madman’ took me three years to finish. I had a first verse and then a year later a second verse, and the third verse I managed to get just a couple of weeks before the studio session. All that time I was looking for a solution. But I listen to it now and I think it was good to have struggled with it. And it gives me the wish, actually, to continue…”
••• Encouraged by the late soprano Anne–Lise Berntsen, Norwegian saxophonist and composer Trygve Seim has been composing songs based on texts by Sufi mystic poet Jalal ad–Din Muhammad Rumi since 2003 and experimenting with form and instrumentation. This date features his new quartet with mezzo–soprano Tora Augestad, accordionist Frode Haltli, and cellist Svante Henryson. Using formal art song, avant–garde composition, Egyptian classical music, and several other sources as guideposts, this cycle is a stellar achievement for the composer. The texts use the award–winning English translations by Coleman Barks. (“Seeing Double” was translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski with Lida Saedian.)
••• While the pacing here is somewhat linear and the instrumentation sparse, the variety in Seim’s charts — alternately strictly annotated or sketched as lead sheets — creates striking atmospherics and complex melodies and countermelodies for this chamber quartet. Musical surprise is everywhere. Augestad is an excellent focal point; her articulation reveals the mystery, humor, and ecstasy — spiritual and carnal — in Rumi’s writings. When Seim’s horn is on the front line, it expresses itself as smoky, soulful, wispy, and speculative, but the balance among the instruments is remarkable. “Seeing Double” uses tango, traces of French chanson, and folk–jazz. Henryson’s cello offers a pizzicato bassline and a lilting lyric solo as Haltli provides quick fills and sprightly chords and Seim creates a second melody line that touches on folk music. “When I See Your Face” walks a tightrope between Egyptian and Indian modalism and nuevo tango. Seim delivers contrast by making use of Ben Webster’s soulful ballad style as Haltli and Henryson engage in a canny dialogue under Augestad’s vocal. It’s followed by “Like Every Other Day,” an elegant, purposefully drawn–out ballad that connects Brecht–Weill, Jerome Kern, and Norwegian folk music. The outlier here is the brief but startling instrumental “Whirling Rhythms,” which showcases the spectrum of dialogic experience between Haltli and Seim — whose musical relationship goes back decades. The quartet is at its best on the closer, “There Is Some Kiss We Want.”
••• Augestad expresses Rumi’s observations on the deepest of the heart’s longings with affirmation and generosity as the instrumentalists weave a joyful backdrop somehow simultaneously filled with yearning. Rumi Songs won’t necessarily appeal to everyone, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of Seim’s achievement. His discipline, intuition, and imagination in writing for this group make Rumi’s already accessible writings absolutely compelling as song.
Website: http://www.trygveseim.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trygveseimsax/?fref=ts
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••