Ingebrigt Haker Flaten

The name “Basso Continuo” refers not to early music but rather to the double double bass backbone Mike Bisio and Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten provide to Stephen Gauci’s quartet.

With a past in hardcore/metal bands, mostly playing the bass guitar, soon Kjetil Moster changed to the tenor saxophone and became interested in crossing jazz and rock with a strong improvisational approach. Specially interested in the ecstatic music of John Coltrane, his personal signature consists in a renovation of the Coltranean stylings.

It has been said that jazz is a voracious musical language, eating all kinds of other music to serve its hybrid nature as a mix of European and African elements in cosmopolitan America, the country where it was born, eventually to be spread to the world. But we have to understand this with some nuances.

Here is another record you have to buy: The Thing With Otomo Yoshihide: "Shinjuku Crawl" (Smalltown Superjazz 2009).

As can be inferred by their name, The Scorch Trio is a high energy improvisational jazz band that touches of fusion, rock 'n' roll and free jazz. Consisting of Raoul Bjorkenheim on guitar, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and new member Frank Rosaly on drums and percussion, the group mixes high energy blowouts with abstract soundscapes to create a compelling blend of music.

"If not ecstatic, we replay." An interesting statement and quite a kick-off to the Shinjuku Growl, a recent offering by The Thing with guest guitarist Jim O'Rourke.