The Vertical Perspective & Heaven In A Wild Flower (2CD Bundle)

This group came together by a stroke of luck, when with short notice Niels Vincentz, Søren Kjærgaard, Thomas Morgan and Billy Hart joined forces for a single concert during the Copehagen Jazz Festival in 2013.
The performance was an explosive meeting between the four distinct musical temper- aments, launching a collaboration that reverberates the life experience, cultural back- grounds and generations of players.

Since then they have developed a sound of their own, carried forth by a shared orientationand yet, complexified in multi-directional playing. Across the two albums, we shift between song forms and open-ended improvisations, fierypulse and spacious width, earthy timbres and oblique harmonies – all of which is interwo-ven into an authentic sonic approach of both historic fluency and contemporary veins.

The Vertical Perspective which forms the first half of the twin release, features a composi-tional blend of Vincentz’ and Kjærgaard’s writing in vibrant interplay with Morgan and Hart,who despite their overwhelming presence on the contemporary jazz scene, had neverplayed together before. The recording was done in a single day’s session during a tour inDenmark in the spring of 2017.

The following year they recorded the twin album Heaven In A Wildflower on a tour that also included a live recording at the legendary Jazzhus Montmartre (still to be released).The second session unfolds a more spacious and minimal approach where Kjærgaard’sairy Meridiana pieces weave a compositional thread through the work. Originally com-posed for string quartet, these pieces were first on the album Meridiana: Lines Toward A Non-Local Alchemy by Kjærgaard and the legendary Danish poet, philosopher, painter and former tennis pro, Torben Ulrich.

However, the pieces were broad up when Kjærgaard learned, that Thomas Morgan had studied the cello intensely before turning to the double bass. As we hear Thomas Morgan give voice to the cello part on the double bass, we are granted an insight into his contem- porary sound on the bass and his use of register and timbre. The idea to interpret the string quartet in the group, was also motivated by a wish to investigate the classic jazz quartet instrumentation from a different compositional angle.

The resulting work is an oblique mix of open-ended ballad forms, 12-tonal melodics, am- biguous harmonies, carried forth by a search for sounds both deep and wide, mysterious and poetic.