I often have de la misère, as we say in good Quebecois French, with symphonic classical music – finding it emphatic, excessively dramatic, in short pompous (there you go). On the other hand, jazz music’s “bigue bandes”, as our French cousins put it, make me happy. No doubt it’s because of their exuberance and their fundamentally joyful character, but with them, curiously, no sonic assault, no overdo is ever too much.
Made up of three drummers, three double bassists and ten blowers, the Supersonic Orchestra is a strong band. And since this recording was made in front of a live audience (at the Molde festival in Norway), hold on to your hats when they take the curves, this thing moves hard and fast!
Even if it comes in like a lion, these nice folks don’t drive at full speed the whole time. The arrangements are sometimes more intimate and feature small formations within the ensemble, leaving room for improvisation and giving the brass the opportunity to perform some incendiary solos. As for the rhythm section, made up of three drummers and three double bassists, it allows them to play more around the rhythm, as well as cranking the orchestra’s impact exponentially.
An emulator of Paal Nilssen-Love and his Big Unit, leader Gard Nilssen is a drummer too. He plays as well in another large ensemble, the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, and also in the jazz-rock group Bushman’s Revenge. With this Supersonic Orchestra, he blends in as much Count Basie and Coltrane’s Africa/Brass project as Sun Ra, even adding a good dose of Afrobeat in the last piece. I may not know Norwegian, but you only have to look at the title of this one to see the first name of the man nicknamed The Black President. The last few minutes of this effort are comparable to the final burst of a fireworks display.
