Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Kresten Osgood Quintet: Kresten Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz

6

Kresten Osgood Quintet: Kresten Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz

By

Sign in to view read count
Kresten Osgood Quintet: Kresten Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz
One way of getting a handle on a jazz artist's style is a perusal of their "played with," "recorded with" resume. Danish drummer Kresten Osgood has collaborated in the recording studio with the likes of pianists Paul Bley and Masabumi Kikuchi, bassist Mark Dresser and saxophonist Sam Rivers—free-flying iconoclasts all. The drummer/bandleader lives up to that characterisation here.

Kristen Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz, a wide-tanging two CD set, explores some lesser-known tunes from some of music history's freer thinkers, beginning with Eric Dolphy's "Gazzeloni," from Dolphy's best known album, Out to Lunch (Blue Note, 1964). Osgood's take on the tune is rawer than the original, wilder and more free-ranging. It sounds like the free jazz outfit that pianist Cecil Taylor put together for Unit Structures (Blue Note, 1966), herded here, like cats, into more of a semblance of structure—brilliant in its audacity and fire.

That opener sets the flexible template for the careening, two disc, eighty-plus minute ride.

Osgood and his team of intrepid young Danes take on tunes by pianist Randy Weston, bluesman James Cotton, pianist Elmo Hope, three contributions from Thelonious Monk—including "'Round Midnight," the set's closer—along with music from Charles Mingus and Miles Davis, with a few Osgood originals fitting nicely into the mix.

The group's approach to the set's first two Monk tunes is worth noting. Most interpreters round off the music's sharp edges and push the angles out closer to ninety degrees. Osgood's unit takes things in the opposite direction, making the sound wilder, less domesticated. "Brilliant Corners" features a rolling, rumbling piano solo from Jeppe Zeeberg that sounds like storm clouds tumbling in off the cold ocean, followed by a restrained thunder roll of Osgood's drums. On "Friday The 13th" the band elbows Monk's structure out of shape, with Zeeberg stabbing sharp notes into the bandsaw of Mads Egetoff's raw tenor sax sound, before trumpeter Erik Kimestead—sitting in for the French horn on Monk's Prestige Records rendition of the tune—blows initially in a minimalistic mode before shifting into jagged clusters of notes, leading into bassist voice of reason bass lines statement.

"'Round Midnight," Monk's signature tune (if there is one), is taken in a more traditional fashion, with more of an adherence to the melody, that is underlain by a wash of a cool drone—either electronics or an organ—that gives the sound more of a sad and haunted feeling than that imbued by the wee hours melody.


Also of note is the Miles Davis contribution, "Water Babies," the title tune of the trumpeter's 1976 (recorded in 1967) Columbia Records outing. Grittier than the original, with saxophonist Egetoft's rough edges on full display, the band pushes things forward with an understated-yet-implacable momentum, a low level turmoil that turns down the lights into film noir territory on an originally (relatively, for Davis) bright sound.

Then there is Charles Mingus' "Reincarnation Of A Lovebird," the title tune from his 1960 Candid Records release; and Duke Ellington's "Star-Crossed Lovers," from the Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia Records, 1957) album. The former is a perfect capture of the Mingus spirit, the latter the most unabashedly beautiful and pensive (yet still adventurous) moment of a terrific two disc set from drummer Kresten Osgood and his crack quintet.

Track Listing

Gazzeloni; Thoughts From Duke; Little Niles; La Berthe; Blues In My Sleep; Crazy Witch Game; Brilliant Corners; Star Crossed Lovers; Water Babies; Reincarnation Of A Lovebird; Friday The 13th; Monk Fonk; DE DET; Tchicai In Heaven; Round Midnight.

Personnel

Erik Kimestad: trumpet; Mads Egetoft: saxophone; Jeppe Zeeberg: piano, keyboards; Matthias Petri: bass; Kresten Osgood: drums.

Album information

Title: Kresten Osgood Quintet Plays Jazz | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: ILK Music

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

What Was Happening
Bobby Wellins Quartet
Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
A New Beat
Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y

Popular

Eagle's Point
Chris Potter
Light Streams
John Donegan - The Irish Sextet

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.