Roger Johansen - Straight Ahead (2020)

Drummer Roger Johansen hails from Tverrlandet outside Bodø, and for many years has been a central figure in jazz in his hometown. He has made five records in his own name, as well as records in collaboration with, among others, guitarist Staffan William Olsson & Sharp 9, pianist Jørn Øien, saxophonist John Surman & The Rainbow Band, vocalist Karin Krog and brother, trumpeter Tore Johansen, to name a few few. Like many other Norwegian musicians, he started in the school band, but joined the jazz community, including playing with pianist Jan Gunnar Hoff, bassist Terje Venaas and drummer and percussionist Finn Sletten.

For a few years he lived in Oslo, but a few years ago moved back to his hometown, where he has established himself as an important piece in the jazz and music scene in the city.

At "Straight Ahead" we meet him with pianist Magne Arnesen and Swedish bassist Hans Backenroth, and we are served seven more or less well-known standards, plus Halvard Kausland's "Blues For Buddy" and Arnesen's "Dancing Clouds". And it's like the title says: Straight Ahead. From the beginning with Kern and Mercer's "Old Fashioned" to the end, Grouya and Anderson's "Flamingo", this straight piano trio jazz is served on silver barrels from three musicians who really know this form of "top sports". A lot can be mistaken for some recordings with blissful Bill Evans, without Arnesen copying Evans a little heavy projection. But Backenroth and Johansen could well sit in with Bill Evans with the effort they make on this recording. Admittedly, I think the sound on Backenroth's bass sometimes becomes very "jazz club in the 70s", but it is a trifle that does not count much for the overall impression.

Arnesen is a good pianist you really hear too rarely on the record. He has a light touch in the Evans landscape and copes with these standards very well. Backenroth has more or less specialized in this type of jazz, and I do not know how many times I have heard him live at, for example, JazzCup in Copenhagen in the last five years, but there are many! He is a good bassist who knows this music inside and out, not least from several years in the company of saxophonist Bernt Rosengren and others within this jazz genre. And his solos where he plays with the bow are brilliant. And Johansen - the very chaplain himself - plays a somewhat anonymous role in the recording. He is not the one who brags for us to notice how technically competent he is, but lies behind it and controls the field with great conviction, knowledge and responsiveness.

"Straight Ahead" has become another fine piano trio record, where Norwegian and Swedish musicians make no attempt to interfere in the footsteps of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, which I really think too many do nowadays. They do their trio jazz as it was done in the Union States many years ago, with respect for the role models, without having to bring so much new and revolutionary life to the square.