Unikt musikkmøte

Drammens Tidende of 2 July 2009 reports from Kongsberg on the day of the concert: when the Scot Jackie Leven and the Telemarker Knut Buen meet that evening, it is a milestone in the jazz festival’s history. The director is Jon Gjerde of Drammen. According to the piece it is the first commissioned work in the festival’s 50-year history, and the trade magazine Fidelity calls the concert at Christians Kjeller “the cultural event of the year”; the unusual meeting of the famous Scottish singer-songwriter with one of Norway’s leading folk musicians has caused a stir.

Gjerde, 56, a stand-up comedian, copywriter, actor and artist, has believed in the idea since 2005. It came to him while renting a mountain farm in Tuddal one summer: Knut Buen is “a clone of Espen Askeladd and Myllarguten”, a superb folk musician; in the car he was playing Leven as usual, and the thoughts met. “They are both strong tradition bearers with quite different standpoints, but neither of them is an A4 figure. There is something of a fairy tale about both.” He is looking forward “like a child” to seeing whether the bridge between two cultures holds.

The concert includes several newly written Leven songs given the unmistakable character of the Hardanger fiddle. Buen compares himself with Leven: both are free improvisers who need no script, and there is no school for learning the Hardanger fiddle – it is all about what you manage to find. He expects both wistful interplay and wild improvisation, and knows the moment may be hard to repeat. Leven himself is full of enthusiasm for Gjerde’s ideas and artistic abilities: you do not meet many who work entirely without thinking of their ego.