Nordkraft Big Band - Silent Course (2025)

“Rest Your Head” and “Turn In,” sourced from Other Side, bookend the album and highlight Wertz’s introspective lyricism. “Those are two of the tunes that we played at Danielle’s release show that I especially loved,” Le Boeuf shares. “They just wanted to be arranged—put on a larger canvas with added colors.” The former, featuring Martin Granum’s soaring guitar and an intensity-heightening joint solo from Wertz and Le Boeuf, speaks to meditative origins and complex emotional investigation. The latter, with Anders Ammitzbøll’s centered bass solo, Thomas Fryland’s dazzling trumpet and the composer’s direct vocals, addresses a world in crisis. Written in 2017, as wildfires consumed parts of California, American politics veered sideways, and gun violence was ubiquitous, it remains ever relevant today as history repeats itself.
Le Boeuf’s “First Snow,” penned as the first flakes of winter fell in Denver on his sister’s birthday, unfolds as a bold and wondrous piece foregrounding alto and wordless vocals. The title track, one of several numbers that the saxophonist wrote with poet Sarah Pirkle, offers a gentle first act, rising tides, Sturm und Drang, and a quiet departure. A brilliant display of vocal control, it shows Wertz in peak form.
“Where Do I Go,” a creator’s eternal pondering, begins with Wertz’s spinning melody and takes on broader dimensions—exploring inner spaces and outer reaches—with a baton pass to Le Boeuf. “I originally wrote this piece as an intimate, tender duo for voice and guitar” the vocalist explains. “I love that with Remy’s arrangement it became more cinematic.” Exploring themes of refuge and the passage of time, Wertz and Le Boeuf craft a deeply felt narrative with “Aberdeen.” Amplified by the contributions of trumpeter Rolf Thofte, it proves absolutely riveting.
Touching on influences, the program is enhanced with the inclusion of Le Boeuf’s charts for Joni Mitchell’s “I Had a King” and Madison Cunningham’s “Something to Believe In.” The Mitchell classic, couched in fairytale layout and dealing with the arc of a marriage and divorce, has long appealed to Wertz: “This song was my introduction to Joni when I was a teenager, and it was the first time my mind was blown by a lyric that was 100% poetry and 100% conversational. For over a decade I secretly wished I would stumble into the right opportunity to record it. I’d always dreamt of an arrangement in a larger, more orchestral setting, so this felt like the perfect place for it.” The relatively spare “Something to Believe In,” written by Cunningham, Ethan Gruska and Pete Harper, brings a similar sensibility into an arena of loss and guilt. Each of those pieces stands on its own, yet they’re linked through themes of kingdoms and tides of dissolution.

A singular project and a true gift of expression, this music represents the pinnacle of collaborative invention. “I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to do this together,” Wertz remarks and Le Boeuf echoes with thanks to the Nordkraft Big Band. Their appreciation and sincerity both ring true at every turn on Silent Course.