Grand General - Grand General
SKU
05-RCD 2139
Another very strong release 'rock/electric jazz/avant-progressive/call it anything' release from Rune Gramofon who are definitely on a roll these days. Then again, they have one of the most fertile contemporary scenes to draw on (their home turf in Norway), but still - they are showing great taste and daring and this is another wild and great ride.
"This is the debut album from Norwegian jazz/rock/prog band Grand General. Grand General are: Ola Kvernberg (violins, viola); Even Helte Hermansen (guitar); Erlend Slettevoll (keyboards); Trond Frønes (bass); Kenneth Kapstad (drums).
Having played a handful of sensational gigs as Kenneth Kapstad Group, this impressive line-up is now ready with a more fitting name for their debut album, Grand General. Ola Kvernberg comes from a family of musicians and started classical violin studies at the age of nine. He also played folk music early on and appeared on a record when he was 14. He started playing jazz at the age of 16 and got his education at the Jazz Academy in Trondheim, a breeding ground for many great musicians. His proper breakthrough came with the album Liarbird (2010) which won him a Norwegian Grammy and was received with wide acclaim both in Norway and abroad. As with so many musicians of his generation, he has played with "everybody." He is notably featured on Motorpsycho's The Death Defying Unicorn. Even Helte Hermansen is a guitarist extraordinaire in power-jazz trio Bushman's Revenge, with four albums on Rune Grammofon. A former member of black-jazzers Shining, he grew up listening to everything from Kiss and Pantera to Frank Zappa and John Coltrane. Erlend Slettevoll is yet another graduate from the Jazz Academy in Trondheim. He has worked with several of Norway's most accomplished jazz ensembles, most notably as a member of The Core and Petter Wettre Quartet. Trond Frønes is the main writer in Grand General and known from bands like Cadillac, El Doom & The Born Electric, and lately doom-metal trio Sunswitch. Kenneth Kapstad has been a permanent member of Motorpsycho since the creative burst that started with their Little Lucid Moments album in 2008. He also plays in the extreme metal duo Monolithic with Stian Westerhus, the death/trash metal band Goat The Head with Trond Frønes and Møster! with Kjetil Møster (Ultralyd) and Nikolai Eilertsen (Elephant9). With a violinist on board, it's difficult not to mention the Mahavishnu Orchestra when trying to place Grand General in a musical perspective."
- LabelRune Gramofon
- UPC7033662021390
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