Jaga Jazzist again

Last week on Saturdaynight April 2nd I went to see Jaga Jazzist, a band from Norway. Had a great night with a great performance. I probably going to buy their latest album "One-Armed Bandit". Before the concert I only saw one YouTube video of this album, so I didn't know much of the other work on the album, but based on the earlier work from previous albums and previous concerts I visited I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. And I was right.

If you asked me to describe the music of Jaga Jazzist I think you can't mention one particular music style or musical influence. Their music has elements of jazz, big band, classical music, electronic music, minimal music and prog rock. The bandmembers often mentions bands like Talk Talk, Soft machine as one of their influences. If you listen to some of the songs from their last album you also can add Frank Zappa, Steve Reich and Phillip Glass to that list.

If you listen to the title song of this album you can probably understand why I added Frank Zappa to the list of musical influences. Some parts reminds me about 'Peaches and Regalia' from Zappa's "Hot Rats"-album and then especially the brass parts from the Saturday Night Live version.

And if you listen to the song 'Tocatta' of their latest album and which was the opening of Jaga Jazzist's concert you can understand why I added Steve Reich and Phikip Glass to the list of musical influences.

But Jaga Jazzist are certainly not clones of the mentioned artists. They mix all these influences into their own unique eclectic music style.

I found three videos on You Tube from the concert at Tivoli, Utrecht. I've embedded them so you can get a bit of an impression. They also played one of my personal favourites 'Oslo Skyline' as an encore. I couldn't find a video from the Tivoli performance of this song, so I've embedded a video from an earlier performance about 4 years ago. I especially like the massive part with the brass section at 2min34.

Enjoy the videos!

Jaga Jazzist tonight

I'm going to a concert from Jaga Jazzist tonight with friends. Looking forward to it. Report possibly follows later.