There is the nice story, that Nils
Petter Molvær brings Vilde, his four years old daughter, every morning to the kindergarten, by criss-crossing
whole Oslo on the bike. Yet - on the trumpet player's new album are the two pieces "Vilderness1" and "Vilderness2"
, expressing the father's love to his little daughter.
Then there are the stories about the "crank" Nils who opens his studio's doors to the loneliness from his Nordic
as-silent-as-vain homeland - for several long months of hair splitting work. Born in 1960 on the Norwegian island
Sula, Molvær studied in Trondheim and moved later to Scandinavia's Capital of Jazz: Oslo.
And I remember the unpretending and careless clothed man in the middle of the stage, recently in Bonn. The giant
beats didn't lure almost any movement, he stepped back and it seemed that only the trumpet has been in front.
Against this: The hype probed by some contemporaries, calling the calm Norwegian a "new Miles Davis", a "Prophet
of the North".
But Nils Petter Molvær has from Mr Cool Jazz either the playing or the behaviour. Instead he joined a special
heritage of Miles Davis with the composition "Khmer" two years ago.
The debut "Khmer" (1998) is one extremely filigree production, a unification of Ambient, Trip Hop, Big Beat,
Hip Hop and even Jazz.
By this, Nils Petter Molvær prepared the way for impossible sound experiments and the critics are driving mad
on that, even the dance floor is served with remixes. Short: Molvær opened doors and gates for a new Scandinavian
crossover culture.
So the follower "Solid Ether": Atmospheric close sound collages, interrupted by the as fragile as clear trumpet
lines stumbling into immeasurable heights - after all: There is the similarity to Miles Davis.
Well, this might the press calling "New Jazz".
My recommendation.
