Maren Selvaag is Norway's first woman to hold a master's degree in jazz piano from the Norwegian Academy of Music. She has now released her debut album, recorded at Avatar Studios in New York.
/ 12/12/2016 / codex– I very rarely compose with a glass of red wine in the moonlight, says Maren Selvaag and laughs. – I think inspiration is unfortunately a bit of a loose term. Unfortunately, because inspiration is actually important. For me, composing is a craft and a way of being creative. I was at one of Erlend Skomsvoll his workshops, and he said that creativity is constant. You don't wake up one day and have lost your creativity.
“Write something with five notes”
We meet Maren in her composer's den, an office she rents from a PR agency in Vika, Oslo. There, she writes her music, among other things, on a grand piano she has borrowed from Steinway.
– After 10 years, I can compose on request, partly because I have had other good teachers both in my studies and in other musicians, she says. – It started 10 years ago, when a teacher gave me five notes written on each post-it note, and challenged me to compose something based on that.
It became a work she still plays in concerts, most recently at the release concert at Kulturkirken Jakob on November 14th.
It was the Jazz Festival in her hometown of Lillehammer that opened her ears to jazz.
– I was captivated. There was such a wide range of creative expression. And not least, seeing musicians on stage, it was as if they had escaped becoming adults. They had a light in them that I didn't see in other adults, she says.
Live at Avatar Studios
Now she has released her debut album "Close to shore", recorded in the very Avatar studios in New York.
– It was fantastic to be in New York and be able to do that. To find a bridge from a very strong American tradition to the Nordic scene, which is perhaps more art-oriented and freer, and to explore where I should place myself in the middle of all this. It was also a processing of impressions after a long period of music studies.
An important contributor to the recording was bassist and composer Eivind Opsvik, who is a central part of improvisational music in New York. She also brought drummer Eric McPherson, who also has a lot of experience from acoustic jazz music. The three musicians went into the studio after two days of rehearsal. In Avatar they started at 9 in the morning, and work beyond. Several of the songs on the album are first "takes". The sound engineer was Katsuhiko Naito, one of the most experienced in the city when it comes to sound recording of acoustic jazz. He has previously worked on sound for people like Al Di Meola and John Scofield.
– I thought I was going to be in awe. The HBO orchestra was recording the soundtrack to Boardwalk Empire in the studio next door, and upstairs there was an ECM recording. But it was such a calm and cozy atmosphere there. We recorded everything live, which I really like. I'm glad to have ended up in a part of music where you have that focus. There's something magical about it.
The album was released on vinyl and streaming services on November 14th, and is published by the record label Pave the way records. At the release concert the same day, she brought a band consisting of Christian Meaas Svendsen on double bass and Simon Olderskog Albertsen on drums. Now she hopes to take the songs on tour in the spring.
You can find the album on streaming services, here is the album link to Spotify og here to TidalMaren tells a little about all the tracks on the album in her own words.
No Blues
I set myself the task of making a blues that wasn't a blues. I wasn't allowed to use 12-bar time, but the feeling after hearing the song was still that it was a blues.
Santiago
Santiago is the main character in the book "The Old Man and the Sea", and I wanted to set the experience I had when reading the book and the dramaturgy of the story to music.
Phoenix of the Ashes
The concept of the Phoenix is form in itself. I wanted to use it as a starting point, a painful process of transformation into something new and undefined.
The project
This was the first piece I made that used interval structures instead of harmonic progressions as the basis of the music. I felt it opened up a whole new world.
On Your Way Home
I wanted to make a song that could bring out the same feeling of coming home, whether it's home itself after being lost, or physically coming home for Christmas. I'll never get over belonging, that's probably what Close to Shore is about – I'm going out and searching, but in order to go out there has to be something to start from.
Lament for the Living
I was asked to play it in case something happened when a friend went to Afghanistan with ISAF forces for the first time. What kind of funeral march do you write for someone who is still alive? Fortunately, I never had to use the song, and now it is more of a reminder of all I have to be grateful for.
Manhattan Promenade
Several jazz musicians have had patrons throughout history. Thelonius Monk was helped along by Baroness Kathleen Pannonica Rothschild and wrote the song Pannonica for her. This record was made possible thanks to my patrons of the arts, John & Nicole Bowman, who invited me to live with them in New York. The building I came home to every day was called Manhattan Promenade.
Park railway
I want this song to go fast slow or slow fast. A bit like sitting on a train. I researched how easy I can do something without it feeling boring.
Indecisive
When this song came out, I didn't understand anything. It jumped and bounced around in all directions in time signature, key, tempo and feel – so the very character was indecisiveness in itself, and I just had to accept that.
Formality
Formality is humorous frustration, and the closest I came to a blowout this time. I usually focus on avoiding complaining and seeing the comic in the situation. As Junko Tabei, the first woman on Mount Everest, said: “The secret to success is to remain cheerful.”