Commissioned by the Molde International Jazz Festival and recorded live at the Norwegian festival in 2010, La notte is a salute to Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, whom Ketil Bjørnstad counts amongst his formative influences. Playing alongside the pianist in this special band are prominent musicians from ECM's roster: fellow Norwegians Arild Andersen and Eivind Aarset on double bass and guitars/electronics respectively, British saxophonist Andy Sheppard, German cellist Anja Lechner, and Denmark's "Queen of Percussion" Marilyn Mazur.
Bjørnstad says: "At the same time that I discovered what jazz could be, after listening to Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, I also saw the films by Godard, Bresson and Antonioni. Perhaps it was the slow, rhythmic authority in the films by Michelangelo Antonioni that made me think of music... As long as visual art creates music in our minds, and music creates pictures and visual expressions with the same intensity, the two are deeply and profoundly interdependent".
This album, then, can be considered "the soundtrack to an inner film", in which Antonioni's images and atmospheres are translated and transformed through personal moods and memories. For the Molde concert, Bjørnstad convened an extraordinary group of musicians, old and new friends closely associated with ECM. The concert was rapturously received by the media, and described as an "absolutely stunning performance" by All About Jazz.
Ketil Bjørnstad, pianist, composer, improviser... and also novelist, poet and essayist, has been described by The Guardian as "a cultural prodigy". Prolific in his multi-discipline activities, he has released more than 50 albums and published 40 books. Bjørnstad has been an ECM recording artist since 1993 when his Water Stories album was issued.
Personnel: Ketil Bjørnstad (piano), Andy Sheppard (tenor and soprano saxophones), Anja Lechner (cello), Eivind Aarset (guitars, electronics), Arild Andersen (double bass), Marilyn Mazur (percussion, drums)