(((O))) Review: Aksel Røed’s Other Aspects – Do You Dream in Colours?

The New Orleans approach on the opening composition ‘Goiserer Jodler / To Whom This May Concerne’ starts off with a lullaby approach after a long day’s work as you enter the Preservation Hall in the French Quarter to get a stress-reliving fulfillment as you head towards a crazy modal jazz twist that speaks of the Impulse years from John Coltrane.

This incredible sound coming from the Bergen and Norwegian jazz scene is none other than Aksel Røed. Playing from Dag Arnsesen and General Post Office, he takes his saxophone to open worlds. He has put together an octet line-up entitled Other Aspects with friends from various bands.

With influences from Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayer, Pharoah Sanders, Django Bates, and Charlie Haden’s Libertation Orchestra, Other Aspects allow Askel to flow in different directions by jumping from one painting to another. That’s why Do You Dream in Colours sees Askel more like a visual artist rather than just your simple jazz musician you would read in mainstream magazines.

He takes us back into the mid-‘50s set in a black-and-white approach on ‘I Usually Paint By Myself’ with a calmful texture and concerto bluesy 12-bar arrangement that takes us into the heart of Chicago with wildly drumming improv that flies off the wall before ascending into a mind-blowing climax until the very end.

Then its back home with the wackiest ballet of all ballets ‘Bergen is the Prettiest in Blue’. At first it does sound like an intensive ballet, but once Roed comes in with his sax, he bursts through each note while the ensemble catches up with him to go through this Tom and Jerry short that’ll make Hanna-Barbera sign these guys up to create more scores for their cartoon.

Now we’re cooking with gas! On the ‘Moonshine Movement’ Askel and his fellow bandmates have transformed this composition into a jazzier approach of Parliament Funkadelic’s ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)’ in a Preservation Hall twist! Closing track ‘When You Dream in Colors’ is where the octet comes marching home to Bergen.

Here, Other Aspects bring out more intensive heat to give Askel enough time throughout his improvisation. Then, the upright bass goes into a country regime loophole as Askel calms down to let the band off some steam. It moves into a bossa-nova setting in the Tropicalian sun of South America by visiting the landscapes of Brazil before it comes to a halt as the wind instruments bring out the sun to come over the horizon by starting a brand-new day.

This here is an achievement that Aksel Røed’s Other Aspects has accomplished by bringing jazz in all of its true forms. There’s no electronics, nothing grandiose, no screaming, but a debut that’ll be talked about in the years to come.