Sídsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft
Sídsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft
Genres: jazzland
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About Sídsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft
Sidsel & Bugge Duo is the latest instalment documenting the astonishing musical empathy between singer Sidsel Endresen and keyboard wizard Bugge Wesseltoft. This state-of-the-art union between singer and accompanist sees two master musicians creating music in the moment. Theirs is a total music situation - who can say where the song ends and the accompaniment begins? Each becomes the other, a pulsing of one heartbeat as words and music are shaped by a cross flow of impulses woven into a complete whole the moment they are flung into space. After picking up rave reviews from the international critics - 'Surprise of the year! Blew our breath away with their intimate intensity,' Rondo (Germany), 'Time seemed to stand still!' Downbeat (USA), 'There is nothing else like them in jazz, they have the field themselves, they are totally unique,' Stuart Nicholson - the duo's third album promises to be the latest gem from Bugge's own adventurous Oslo based Jazzland label. One of the unfolding delights in contemporary jazz and improvised music, the Sidsel and Bugge duo dates back to 1993 when both were teaching at a summer jazz camp in their native Norway and decided to work together. 'I knew Sidsel from her work with the ECM label and her more soul orientated material,' says Bugge, 'I was a huge fan, and of course still am.' Yet as Sidsel points out: 'Our musical experiences were quite different, and our musical approaches, but I had been a fan of Bugge's since the late Eighties. But there was from the start some intuitive understanding between us as well as great mutual respect and generosity when performing together that made things work from the beginning.' That beginning was at a concert for the Norwegian Jazz Federation in 1993, where a unique musical partnership was born. In 1994 the duo cut Night Song, their first album together. 'We spent a week in the studio for Night Song,' says Sidsel, 'and we enjoyed it so much and started getting gigs. After the album was released in spring 1995 we started getting gigs abroad, and by that time what started off as a "side project" was a living, working and definitely serious musical entity!' Looking back on that first album, Bugge recalls, 'Our basic idea was to do some personal favourites - in our own way, of course - and some totally improvised pieces.' Among their favourites was an arresting version of 'Lady Is A Tramp,' but totally re re-imagined by the duo, 'Sidsel often comes up with brilliant ideas for arranging,' says Bugge. 'It is important for us to make a song like "Lady Is A Tramp" sound like an "original" song. So Sidsel's idea was for me to play the kalimba [thumb piano] on the song - but first I had to find out how to play it, it wasn't easy!' Speaking about the creative process at work within the duo that makes them so special, Sidsel observes: 'In the Duo, lyrics are rarely a defining thing - initially. Most often I improvise in a "nonsense" kind of language - and often I write words at a later stage. But sometimes we have used a poem of mine and of course the mere shape of it - and the mood/story in it - will define the music. Words and "non-words" are two sides of the same thing for me. Sometimes the literary content becomes a filter through which you "understand" the music, but "sounds" interest me musically - and I am freer then.' In 1998 came their second album Duplex Ride, described as 'Pure magic,' by Rolling Stone magazine. Again the balance between written and improvised numbers remained essentially the same, but what was apparent was a deepening of the musical empathy between the two. 'We have always had this mixture of improvised, half-constructed and fully composed pieces,' says Sidsel. 'Sometimes our improvisations find their "shape" in performance and emerge as "songs" in their own right. We play what interests us at the time. My approach to singing is always: try to find the essence and try to expand it, try to develop as a singer (technically and musically).' Their latest album Out here. In there. is the culmination of a ten years shared musical relationship that has continued to evolve year after year. The musical path they have chosen together, mixing the known and the unknown, has broadened and grown richer through deep mutual understanding. 'Both of us have our solo-projects outside of the duo so we naturally bring with us our "points of interest" and different "angles" into the duo,' says Sidsel, 'This might be the reason the duo is still are developing.' It's music making on the edge and by tapping into the intuitive and leaving the limits of rationality far behind, Sidsel and Bugge are truly a duo of the present and of the future. Albums out on Jazzland Rec.: "Out here. In there." 017 368-2
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