About Oddgeir Berg Trio

Electroacoustic jazz with one leg in melancholy and the other in ecstasy

“…A Trio for the new millennium” - Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz

“One of the leading modern jazz trios of the post-Esbjorn Svensson Trio landscape.” - Ian Patterson, All About Jazz, live review.

Oddgeir Berg Trio is based Oslo, Norway and has toured widely across Europe at major festivals and leading clubs such as Ronnie Scotts. The group has also toured in Japan, China and the USA, Rochester International Jazz Festival, NY and as part of Nordic Jazz in Washington, DC. The group consists of Oddgeir Berg, compositions and keys, Audun Ramo, Double Bass and Lars Berntsen, Drums.

They perform the gamut of emotions with one leg in the realm of ecstasy and the other in the realm of melancholy. They describe their jazz as "electro acoustic".

OBT are now currently releasing their 5th album June 2024. As always on excellent German Ozella Music.

A Place Called Home

The island of Rolla is tiny and sparsely populated - a mere 900 people live here. On A Place Called Home, Oddgeir Berg takes us to this, his father's birth place, for a concept album about the magic of nature, the spaces hidden in memory, and the bonds that family provides. Recorded with a new trio line-up and featuring arguably the strongest compositions of his career, this is at once his most personal and most universal work.

From afar, Rolla may look more like the tip of a vast underwater rockscape than an inhabitable island. Idyllically embedded into a fjord, it rises from the waterline to Mount Sula's 1,000 meter peak. Oddgeir's father was born on a couch in the very house depicted at the back of the cover and still today, the family spends many free days among Rolla's shores, meadows and mountains.These ten wordless songs pay homage to that time, taking listeners through a sonic tour of the island and its wild landscape.

At the same time, the music was written during a period of personal turmoil, including a cancer diagnosis for Berg's mother, and the worries which accompanied her treatment. As one would expect, the music feels intimate and pastoral, mostly slower-paced and introspective. And yet, it unfolds a magnetic pull, drawing listeners in through the lyricism of its melodies and the simmering tension of the interplay between the musicians. You can clearly hear how close these topics are to Oddgeir Berg's heart.

Considering this background, A Place Called Home is a remarkably uplifting experience. On “Circles,” Berg explores neoclassical fusion, inviting new member Audun Ramo to embark on a gorgeous bass solo. “Song for my Mother” oscillates between the hope- and the fearful as Lars Berntsen's drums bleed into textural pulses. But it is “Happiness is where YOU are” which is the most surprising cut here: A warm, almost danceable piece based on a four to the floor bass, and latin percussion flourishes which lend it a dreamy house feeling.

The spirit of gentle exploration may feel like a contradiction for an album about home. But really, it is only natural. Once you've climbed all the way to the top of Mount Sula, you're treated to a spectacular view: On the one side, it stretches across Norway. On the other, it opens into the sea and the Atlantic. It is an invitation to a journey – to make any place your home.

Piano/keys / Oddgeir Berg
Doublebass / Audun Ramo
Drums / Lars Berntsen

“……. a trio for the new millennium.”

-Dan McClenaghan, ALL ABOUT JAZZ

Discography

Christmas with OBT

Christmas Came Early

This may not be the weirdest Christmas album ever recorded – but it most certainly ranks among the most radical ones.

You'll find renditions of popular favourites like “Silent Night”, and ”In Dulce Jubilo”here. But the Oddgeir Berg Trio are performing them with such passionate reticence that they at times sound like bands like Bohren & Der Club of Gore – Christmas does seem to be a bit darker in Norway.

The production creates the sonic twilight zone between night and day that they've by now established as their trademark. Which turns this into more than a collection of carrols: Christmas came early is like a little present you give yourself – no matter the season or occasion.

Review, Jazz THing

Gleich mit den ersten Tönen zieht einen das Oddgeir Berg Trio, ob man will oder nicht, in eine seltsam unwirkliche Atmosphäre, die in der Weihnachtszeit, die man ja nicht zu Unrecht die stillen Tage nennt, allgegenwärtig ist. Das liegt vor allem am langsamen Tempo, mit dem der norwegische Pianist und seine Mitstreiter Karl-Joakim Wisløff am Bass und Lars Berntsen am Schlagzeug diverse Weihnachtsklassiker geradezu zelebriert. So dehnt sich „Es ist ein Ros entsprungen“ auf acht Minuten aus, „In Dulci Jubilo“ wird mit sechs Minuten auch nicht viel kürzer. Bergs Anschlag ist delikat, Wisløffs Bass knorrig und Berntsen raschelt vornehmlich mit den Besen. Alle drei versenken sich in einen ästhetisch klaren Klang, für dessen klare Mischung Berg selbst verantwortlich zeichnet. Ein Weihnachtsalbum ohne Schnickschnack und ohne Kitsch, das seinesgleichen sucht.

Text Rolf Thomas, Jazz thing 141

Review, All about jazz

The late Paul Bley (1932-2016) once said of his ECM Records release Open, To Love (1972), that the sound he created there was his attempt to prove he was the slowest pianist in the world. He was a man with a sense of humor, and his tongue had surely wormed its way into his cheek with that observation. And the mention of Bley in a review of an Oddgeir Berg Trio album comes about for a couple of reasons. One: if jazz has an evolutionary tree, Oddgeir Berg's style of piano playing could be considered a branch off of Bley's. Both artists are known for their patient deliveries and subtle touches, and their molding of circuitous melodies from strings of notes that play out in unconventionally melodic ways. And two: both have a way of slowing time, like they are playing piano in a dimension that, as Bob Dylan once said, "Time Passes Slowly."

Or maybe Bley, and now the Oddgeir Berg Trio, simply enjoyed/enjoy the art of the slow tempo.

Which brings us to Christmas Came Early, the Norwegian trio's 2021 Holiday album and self-proclaimed "Slowest Christmas Album in the World."

Traditional Christmas songs arranged by Oddgeir Berg—some familiar ("It Came Upon A Christmas Clear," "O Come All Ye Faithful,") and others more obscure—are presented with a "passionate resonance," a syrupy-slow, determined marination in a doldrums-like world of sound. And though there is some of the Paul Bley-ish tongue in cheek humor with the CD's online pitch on the Oddgeir Berg Trio website, and the album's family Christmas-like photos---the three players grinning like your oddball uncles (who may have had a drink or two) in their Sunday bests in front of a fireplace encasing crackling flames—the music is top notch, every bit as accomplished, gorgeous, nuanced and understated as the sounds heard on their excellent previous albums, Before Dawn (2018) and In The End Of The Night (2019), both on Ozella Music.

Text Dan McClanaghan, All About Jazz

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