With his 1998 album, Sharing, Norwegian Bugge Wesseltoft made people sit up and take notice. In the tidal wave of verbiage at the end of the last Millenium, he was more than once hailed as "the future of jazz". His music is a hybrid, containing elements of rock, dub, ambient, funk and techno. But it has enough recognisable jazz elements to justify the "New Conception of Jazz" subtitle. Its echoes of Bill Evans "New Jazz Conceptions", give that subtitle an apparent arrogance that is not reflected in Wesseltoft's manner.

Bugge Wesseltoft (by the way, his first name is pronounced "boogie" not "bug" or "bugger") has a respectable jazz history, having recorded in the 90s with fellow Norvegians Eivind Aarset, Arild Andersen, Sidsel Endresen, Jan Garbarek and Jens Wendleboe as well as visitors like Billy Cobham and Dennis Gonzalez. Via his Jazzland label and sponsorship of new talent such as Beady Belle, he is now one of the driving forces of a vital Norwegian scene that is both experimental and eclectic.

Where Sharing had ...

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