So lack of money made me miss a host of possibly good gigs during the past week. Atomic celebrated their release of the live anthology The Bikini Tapes with a gig at Blå in Oslo.
This was also the week of Oslo Jazz Festival. As usual, there weren't many interesting gigs, but I did look forward to Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, which also played at Blå. But, alas, I had no money. Reports said it was a good gig, although I failed in my efforts to find a link of the review i read. I'm not a big follower of the European improvisational scene that Brötzmann is regarded to be a part of, and I often have problems getting through his classic Machine Gun, but I just as often find it enjoyable. Still, I'd gladly pay to see him live.
One of the few other interesting artists at Oslo Jazz was Lee Konitz, whose Motion from 1961 ,with Elvin Jones on drums and the lesser known Sonny Dallas on bass, I love. In connection with his visit, my old nemesis Ole Martin Ihle wrote a pretty good article on cool jazz versus bebop and hard bop in the Norwegian daily Klassekampen (I have no link to the actual article. Try the site's search engine). He points to the apolitical and detached style of cooljazz, as opposed to the engaged and political, or at least social, implications of be bop and hard bop. His reasoning is good, as is his writing, but I can't help to argue that to label Lee Konitz as merely a cool jazz player, is to overlook large parts of his oeuvre.
So there you go. Three concerts in a weeks time, and I attended none of 'em. Damn those delayed student loans.
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