Sissel Vera Pettersen & Nikolaj Hess - By This River (2006)

Nikolaj Hess is a Danish piano/keyboard player, arranger and composer who has worked with Lee Konitz, Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, Ed Thigpen, Kenny Wollensen, amongst many others. He is also associate professor at The Rhythmic Conservatory in Copenhagen, where he is teaching part time. In her bio on her website, Sissel Vera Pettersen describes herself as a saxophonist, vocalist, composer and teacher who was born in Norway and now lives in Copenhagen. Pettersen’ other projects include LIFT (a vocal duo with Randi Pontoppidan), which has collaborated with dancers/performers and video artists, and Trondheim Voices (an ensemble of improvising jazz vocalists).
Sissel and Nikolaj met in 2003 and By This River is the fruit of a collaboration that has seen them perform at festivals and clubs across Scandinavia and USA. On the surface, this album is a collection of interpretations of jazz standards like ‘Body And Soul’ as well as pop songs like Blur’ ‘Out Of Time’. However, to describe it thus would be to do it a grave disservice. For one thing, in some cases it is hard to discern the original song. It is like Sissel and Nikolaj have put all the notes and words from the composition into some alchemical oven, allowing them to melt and brew into some primordial glue from which they’ve extracted a new essence for which they are the sole guardians. This is a difficult transformation they have performed. Out of the simplest of materials (basically keyboards, voice and loops) Sissel and Nikolaj have produced songs that draw you into a reverie like the best lullabies and folk tales. Often I was so caught up in the seeming effortless passage of words becoming grunts becoming sighs becoming words becoming song that I didn’ know which song I was listening too. And this is not a bad thing. The instrumentation is so subtle and open, the notes gently fall over each other like the ripples at the edge of a lake. And they do this without sounding trite or contrived. All songs are over 5 minutes in length which allows for a lot of air and space and room to explore and play but also keeps them close to a typical song duration. The format allows the listener to meditate without the album being an album for meditation.
Nikolaj Hess and Sissel Vera Pettersen have produced a fine album in a genre which is prone to mishaps and pap.