“Did we really?” This album’s title implies disbelief, but if the questions is, “Did these folks pull off a successful collaboration?” then hearing is believing. Yes, they did. Did We Really? documents a summit that might seem unlikely to fans of each party, both of which make sophisticated, intense music, but in different realms. Cortex is a Norwegian acoustic jazz quartet that first convened in 2007. The combo’s music dances with unflappable confidence upon a tightrope strung between the poles of fiery, free sonorities and lucid, engaging compositions. Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen is a guitarist, also Norwegian, who typically operates within a realm bounded by heavy metal, prog rock and electric jazz.
You might not expect Mollestad and the members of Cortex (trumpeter Thomas Johansson, saxophonist Kristoffer Berre Alberts, double bassist Ola Høyer and drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen) to be acquainted, let alone collaborate. It turns out Johansson and Mollestad have known each other since their student years and have often attended each other’s gigs. But appreciation alone is not enough to ensure the compatibility that’s evident on Did We Really?. To achieve that, the guitarist and band have cleared out a musical zone over the course of a couple tours and the three-day session that yielded this album. The outcome overlaps with their respective projects, but it has a character all its own.
Johansson—Cortex’s main, but not sole, composer—wrote six of the album’s eight tunes. While some are apt platforms for Cortex’s trademarked, tightly wound energy, others have a spacious quality that makes room not only for an extra instrument, but for the quartet’s members to stretch out. The intricacy of Alberts’ incandescent, beseeching solo on “Hyman’s Porch” develops in a patient, circuitous way that stands apart from Cortex’s usual breakneck directness. “HedTex” has a stalking, noir quality that could work as the theme to a mid-20th-century courtroom TV drama, although the soloists speak in tongues and with technologies that didn’t exist back then.
Mollestad’s contributions are likewise tailored to foster a common language. She skips the rock-steeped riff heaviness of her trio in favor of looser tunes that develop patiently and make plenty of surface available to be colored by the participants. On the title track, Anderson’s drumming passes in almost tidal fashion back and forth across the guitarist’s questing path. Here and elsewhere, Mollestad favors sustained tones that harmonize with the horn players’ distinctive sounds. While she and Cortex both have packed schedules, let’s hope that they keep this partnership going. [Sauajazz]
—Bill Meyer