Tord Gustavsen and the Church of Jazz

The Tord Gustavsen Trio just completed an American tour to mark the release of a new CD called THE GROUND (ECM). "Gustavsen draws on his classical and church backgrounds to compose elegant, hymnlike melodies," says THE WASHINGTON POST. Read an e-interview with Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and listen to a track from the CD.

Almost everyone remarks on the prayerful, hymn-like quality of your music, and you call some of the pieces "wordless" hymns. What is the connection between hymns and prayer and jazz for you, and where did it come from?

Photo: Erik Laeskogen

To me, there's a strong connection on a personal level. I feel it's important to dig into what's lying deep in one's musical self in order to play "organic" jazz, and that may involve getting in touch with music sung, played and/or listened to during childhood. Growing up, I had a lot of hymns and spirituals along with lullabies and children's songs in my home, and so this music is crucial in making up my musical foundation. It's best to reach out and explore from a nurturing and caressing foundation.

Also, there is of course a strong link between spirituals and jazz in music history; both European hymns and African American spirituals were among the important musical traditions present in the melting pot area where "jazz" was formed. Contemporary jazz that moves too far away from the devotional feel -- with or without an explicitly spiritual emphasis -- has a tendency to lose its appeal to me. I do love a lot of complex, hard core, intriguing music... but there is something about uplifting and profound grooves and about essential, simplistic sensualism in creative improvisation and melodying ... these things are spiritual to me, and they are core elements of the music I cherish the most.

Across the U.S. -- from the famous St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Manhattan to the Church of St. John Coltrane in San Francisco -- there are more and more churches where you can find jazz. What's been your own experience of churches and their music (playing with choirs, your connection with Oslo's Church City Mission) and where do you see and hear their influence on you? Where do gospel and the African American spiritual fit into what you do?

Jazz and "world music" have been present in churches in Norway for a couple of decades -- not necessarily on a regular basis, but in occasional projects and special masses, etc. Also, a few of my colleagues have composed original "jazz masses" using Latin words from the old liturgies and Norwegian translations integrated in jazz's musical language. Important as this has been, I often feel that one is looking too much for single-dimensional "happy" music when looking for jazz in churches. I have been involved in doing a meditative jazz vesper in an Oslo church during the last two years, responding to the need we've felt for a service with room for silence and reflection, using music with more space and incorporating musical landscapes that embrace melancholy and uplifted states without trying to impose a specific mood on people.

Regarding gospels and African American spirituals, cf. also the remarks above. I've played a lot of this music during the years, and spirituals are probably among the core sources of my own music today. I also did a special project a few years ago based on a collection of lesser-known but extremely inspiring spirituals I found at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. I'm not, however, too intrigued by the way these traditions are mostly performed today. They are often connected to an easy-going theology of success and salvation that I don't really support.