Jakob Sorensen

“Bagland”

(Jaeger Community Music JCM001)

Jakob Sorensen is a young trumpeter and composer from Denmark. As part of his studies at the Acedemy of Music in Aarhus he spent a year in Berlin, a city with a thriving jazz scene populated by imaginative young musicians. Besides leading his own Bagland quintet Sorensen also plays with the trios Elm and Elliott (both of which feature other Bagland members) and with the pop/rock bands Maskinvad, Xylop and Dad Rocks!

“Bagland” is the Danish word for “constituency” and serves as both an album title and as the name of Sorensen’s band which also includes guitarist Alex Jonsson, pianist Mathias Jaeger, bassist Frederik Sakham and drummer Frej Lesner. The group’s début album features seven Sorensen original composition plus one piece jointly written by the trumpeter and bassist Frederik Sakham.

The music is a celebration of the group’s Nordic roots and is unmistakably Scandinavian in tone.
“Bagland” was recorded in a remote coastal location (shades here of Jan Garbarek’s seminal album “Dis”) and something of the atmosphere of the surroundings plus the group’s sense of isolation and unity of purpose finds its way into the music. Sorensen’s compositions are evocative and often have a strong pictorial quality, something reinforced by the ECM style album packaging with its melancholic but beautiful images by the award winning photographer Kirsten Klein. 

The opening piece “Vindeltrappen” immediately establishes the mood for the album. There’s a brief introduction from Sorensen on breathy, melancholic solo trumpet before Jonsson and Sakham set up a kind of melodic vamp that provides the platform for Sorensen’s subsequent trumpet extemporisations, his breathy, whispering tone suggesting the influence of fellow Scandinavians Henriksen, Eick and Molvaer alongside Miles Davis and Tomasz Stanko. Jaeger’s piano solo is flowingly lyrical and the understated support from Jonsson, Sakham and Lesner is just what the music needs.

Sorensen’s melodies are direct and instantly appealing but he and his band treat them in interesting ways. “Pelsfrakker” includes an imaginative guitar solo by Jonsson as he stretches out underpinned by the military sound of Lesner’s snare, virtually a constant throughout the piece. Yet despite the martial trappings the piece never loses its essential sense of melody, something encouraged by the leader’s own trumpet playing.

The brief but lovely “Op Ned Henover” begins with a delightful dialogue between Sorensen’s eloquent, warm toned trumpet and Jonsson’s gently chiming Frisell like guitar underscored by Lesner’s cymbal shimmers, mallet rumbles and hand drumming. As the piece evolves Jonsson undertakes a pithy, charming and highly inventive solo before Jaeger’s insistent, minimalist style piano motif provides a bridge into the following “Forandringens Fortivlelse”, the lengthiest piece on the album.
Meaning “The Despair of Change” this composition first appears to develop incrementally with Jaeger’s piano arpeggios eventually leading to the cool majesty of Sorensen’s magnificently eloquent trumpet solo. A change of pace sees the group easing back and Sakham delivers a lengthy double bass solo accompanied only by the sounds of Lesner’s small percussion. Lesner then accompanies the closing dialogue between Jaeger and Jonsson and the piece ends with the wind-chime like sounds generated by the percussionist. Taken as a whole the piece represents a fascinating and absorbing musical journey.   

“Bagland” itself begins with Sorensen’s beguiling trumpet melody before shading off into more freely structured territory as prompted by Jaeger at the piano before quickly resolving itself with the return of Sorensen’s initial theme.

“Marehalmens Flugt” is another epic, clocking in at a little under nine minutes. Sakham’s ruminative solo double bass intro opens the proceedings, eventually establishing a pulse and groove upon which his colleagues can build. The development is gradual and unhurried with the emphasis very much on melody and atmosphere building. Olsson delivers the first solo, an slow burning and thoroughly absorbing affair that eschews flashy techniques. The guitarist favours a cool, clear sound that reveals the influence of such contemporary players as fellow countryman Jakob Bro and New York based Kurt Rosenwinkel. Sorensen’s trumpet whispers beguilingly then soars dramatically in yet another assured performance and the piece ends with the gently limpid sounds of Jaeger’s piano allied to Jonsson’s delicately picked guitar. Sorensen often resolves his compositions quietly, eschewing the cliché of developing every piece to a climax. 

The virtues of “Something Pretty” are adequately expressed in its title. The piece sees the core quintet augmented by the twin clarinets of Nellie Parsager Jensen and Sofie Kirk Ostergaard who both play a prominent part in the arrangement. A joint clarinet passage, almost classical in its structure and purity, ushers in the piece. The two clarinets then intertwine seductively with Sorensen’s trumpet above co-composer Sakham’s anchoring double bass figure.

At a little over a minute and a half the charming miniature that is “Flyver Vaek I Evik Sol” acts as an effective epilogue.

I have to say that like most other commentators, including Peter Bacon of The Jazz Breakfast, I was extremely impressed with “Bagland”. Although the music is unmistakably “Scandi-jazz” it manages to avoid most of the clichés associated with the genre whilst also continuing to sound resolutely
un-American. In other words the twenty six year old Sorensen has come up with a sound that is very much his own. It’s a sound that is often beautiful but one that goes beyond mere prettiness to produce music that is both enchanting and interesting.

Sorensen impresses with the maturity of both his writing and his playing, his trumpeting is a beguiling mix of the assured and the vulnerable and his technique is excellent throughout. Similar virtues can be attributed to the consistently imaginative Olsson, arguably the other outstanding performer on this disc despite the excellent contributions of Jaeger, Sakham and Lesner - I did like the latter’s colourful, characterful but always subtle drumming. It’s perhaps a little invidious to pick out individual contributions because as their group name suggests Bagland are a very fine band with a strong collective identity.

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