A Place Called Home - Oddgeir Berg Trio
Thursday 10th October 2024
Tickets: £20.00 Seat at a shared Table for 4 /£15.00 Seat – No Table
Doors: 7.30pm
Show: 8:00pm-9:30pm – Single Set 75 min
Please note you can book for dinner either before or after the show.
Experience a night with this exceptional Trio at the Hampstead Jazz Club and hear the magic up close and personal.
Oddgeir Berg Trio
Oddgeir Berg Trio is based Oslo, Norway and has toured widely across Europe at major festivals and leading clubs such as Ronnie Scotts. The group has also toured in Japan, China and the USA, Rochester International Jazz Festival, NY and as part of Nordic Jazz in Washington, DC. The group consists of Oddgeir Berg, compositions and keys, Audun Ramo, Double Bass and Lars Berntsen, Drums.
They perform the gamut of emotions with one leg in the realm of ecstasy and the other in the realm of melancholy. They describe their jazz as “electro acoustic”.
OBT are now currently releasing their 5th album June 2024. As always on excellent German Ozella Music.
The island of Rolla is tiny and sparsely populated – a mere 900 people live here. On ‘A Place Called Home‘, Oddgeir Berg takes us to this, his father’s birth place, for a concept album about the magic of nature, the spaces hidden in memory, and the bonds that family provides. Recorded with a new trio line-up and featuring arguably the strongest compositions of his career, this is at once his most personal and most universal work.
From afar, Rolla may look more like the tip of a vast underwater rockscape than an inhabitable island. Idyllically embedded into a fjord, it rises from the waterline to Mount Sula’s 1,000 meter peak. Oddgeir’s father was born on a couch in the very house depicted at the back of the cover and still today, the family spends many free days among Rolla’s shores, meadows and mountains.These ten wordless songs pay homage to that time, taking listeners through a sonic tour of the island and its wild landscape.
At the same time, the music was written during a period of personal turmoil, including a cancer diagnosis for Berg’s mother, and the worries which accompanied her treatment. As one would expect, the music feels intimate and pastoral, mostly slower-paced and introspective. And yet, it unfolds a magnetic pull, drawing listeners in through the lyricism of its melodies and the simmering tension of the interplay between the musicians. You can clearly hear how close these topics are to Oddgeir Berg’s heart.
Considering this background, ‘A Place Called Home’ is a remarkably uplifting experience. On “Circles,” Berg explores neoclassical fusion, inviting new member Audun Ramo to embark on a gorgeous bass solo. “Song for my Mother” oscillates between the hope- and the fearful as Lars Berntsen’s drums bleed into textural pulses. But it is “Happiness is where YOU are” which is the most surprising cut here: A warm, almost danceable piece based on a four to the floor bass, and latin percussion flourishes which lend it a dreamy house feeling.
It is an invitation to a journey – to make any place your home.
‘This is a piano trio to get truly excited about, a trio for the new millennium.’-Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
“One of the leading modern jazz trios of the post-Esbjorn Svensson Trio landscape.” – Ian Patterson , Live review, All About Jazz
LINE-UP:
Piano – Oddgeir Berg
Drums – Lars Berntsen
Bass – Audun Ramo
Please note, The Club is not licensed to allow access to Children under the age of 16 after 9pm, so for evening performances, please do not book tickets for children under the age of 16. Children aged 16 and above are welcome at any time.
For £20.00 Tickets:
Seats are not numbered and you will be seated at available tables. Please note tables seat 4 people, so for bookings of less than 4 people, you will be seated and share a table for 4.
For £15.00 Tickets:
This is a fully seated event. Seats are not numbered and will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.
Please note the Jazz Club is situated in the basement of the Duke of Hamilton Pub and access is via a number of stairs. The nearest toilets are situated on the 1st floor of the Pub.
Showtimes
Doors: 7:30 pm | Show: 8:00 pm