‘What was said’ brings new colours to Tord Gustavsen’s musical palette.

His latest trio project, available on CD and audiophile 180g vinyl, builds upon the subtle understanding of his long musical association with drummer Jarle Vespestad, introduces the entrancing Afghan-German vocalist Simin Tander.

The album explores the tradition of Norwegian church music in a most untraditional way: “For the repertoire of the new project, Simin and I have been working with an Afghan poet, translating and shaping a selection of hymns that I grew up with in Norway into Pashto,” Gustavsen explains. “This process has been challenging and really fruitful. We have gone quite far in interpreting the lyrics in a more ‘integral’ manner, reaching into a space where I feel that Sufism and Christianity actually meet, along with other contemplative traditions.

The Norwegian hymns are my ‘standards’ – reaching deeper down in my musical and spiritual being than the typical jazz canon. The sound and feel of the Norwegian hymns in Pashto is truly captivating.”
Simin Tander also sings, in English, verse of Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-73) and US proto-Beat poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905-82).

As a pure play of sounds, too, the combination of Tander’s voice and Gustavsen’s piano and discreet electronics has an emotional persuasiveness of its own, outside the limits of language. The Gustavsen/Tander/Vespestad trio takes its programme of “hymns and visions” to the concert halls of Europe in the first months of 2016. ‘What was said’ was recorded at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio in April 2015 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Personnel: Tord Gustavsen (piano, electronics, synth bass), Simin Tander (voice), Jarle Vespestad (drums)