Legal Tender
Clean Feed Records CF559CD
Free jazz? Well, not exactly. This quartet from Norway took that tradition as a basis, but the original African-American free jazz never sounded like this. The magazine Jazzwise chose better words to describe Cortex’s blasts of energy: «Avant-garde party music». Instead of the pathways to spiritual ascension, or the revolt against the Man, Thomas Johansson, Kristoffer Berre Alberts, Ola Høyer and Gard Nilssen play music to party to and to be joyful, and that’s also political and sacred in these times of suffering, hatred and disbelief. The composed themes are simple and with no ornaments, giving to the improvised developments all the needed space and all the complexity we like to hear in creative music. The pieces are intense, dramatic and noisy, inviting you to move your body and constantly defying your mind and your soul. Do you remember when Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, or John Zorn and Dave Douglas, played together? Cortex is that next thing you were waiting for…
Avant-Garde Party Music
Clean Feed Records CF441CD
Cortex? No, this isn’t jazz of the cerebral kind – even considering that the approach in “Avant-Garde Party Music” is very much the intelectual one coming from the bebop / hard bop era (when the music seated its users, inviting them to listen and not prioritarily to dance) and approaching our times through the free jazz evolutive line. Avant-garde the music certainly is, but you can still party with it, because this record grooves and swings like hell. Not in the conventional way, of course, but giving a chance to your temptation to shake the body. Having the transitional years going from bop to free as reference, it’s natural that you find on these tracks the influence of what Ornette Coleman did with Don Cherry. But this isn’t as simple as that: Cortex is a Scandinavian band and as such the music has a twist, the same you’ve found before in groups like The Thing, Atomic and The Core: a sort of hyper-realism, turning this jazz born in Europe even more “authentic” than the American original.
Live in New York
Clean Feed Records CF381CD
On Cortex second release with Clean Feed Records you’ll find them again in the best context possible: in concert. Considering that the band works in the tradition pioneered by Ornette Coleman, this concert recording has a special significance, because it took place in the world capital of jazz, New York.
The approach may be somewhat European, but the music registered here seemed (and seems) at home. Critics wrote at the occasion that Cortex is walking the same routes where we can find John Zorn’s Masada. This means the music is energetic and robust, with a frenetic rhythm section and a trumpet / sax frontline very exact when delivering unisons and counterpoints and free in the improvised solos. The music is simultaneously heavy and agile, flowing as a bird of prey in open air, and defying gravity. A must have, must listen!
"Live!"
Clean Feed Records CF309CD
Ornette Coleman’s partnership with Don Cherry had in the frontline formed by John Zorn and Dave Douglas in the band Masada a welcomed heritage. Now is Cortex’s turn to continue that lineage concerning the interactive work between an alto alto and baritone (Kristoffer Alberts) and a trumpet (or, in the case of Thomas Johansson, a cornet). With double bassist Ola Høyer and drummer Gard Nilssen, these four Norwegian musicians are notable representatives of a new generation of Scandinavian jazzmen who are refreshing the scene at the same time they’re preserving the identity of a music idiom subjected to many changes in its worldwide evolution, either gaining local colors or mixing with other genres and styles. Cortex plays new jazz with the tools and forms of the old one. More exactly: this quartet practices a creative, exploratory jazz concept with the patine of the former years of free jazz, when the bop matrix was very much in evidence. Like in those times, the music in “Live!” is specially intense and powerful, with an “in-your-face” attitude never giving us a moment of rest. At the end of the album, we’re not tired. It’s the other way around: we get energized and joyful, ready for what’s coming next.
Göteborg
Gigafon Records Giga008CD
Cortex is a norwegian jazzquartet, and their music is clearly inspired by the American avantgarde jazz of the 60s and 70s, with giants like Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman and John Zorn looming in the shadows.
At the same time there is something unmistakably Nordic and contemporary about the way the debutalbum Resection sounds, giving associations to people like Magnus Broo and Kenny Wheeler.
The quartet offers dynamic musicality and an effortless musical dialogue in a string-of-pearls of original songs, all written by Thomas Johansson, obviously an unusual compositional talent.
After the release of their debutalbum, Resection, the band has played on several jazzfestivals such as Nattjazz in Bergen, Molde Int. Jazz Festival and Dølajazz in Lillehammer as well as a tours in Norway, Europe and Japan. The record has received several great reviews as well as beeing played on Norwegian and international radio.
Resection
Bolage BLGCD014
The band's music is clearly inspired by the American avantgarde jazz of the 60s and 70s, with giants like Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman and John Zorn looming in the shadows.
At the same time there is something unmistakably Nordic and contemporary about the way Resection sounds, giving associations to people like Magnus Broo and Kenny Wheeler.
The young quartet offers dynamic musicality and an effortless musical dialogue in a string-of-pearls of original songs, all written by Thomas Johansson, obviously an unusual compositional talent.