In its hour-and-a-half set, Norwegian jazz band Jaga Jazzist delivered a mind-blowing performance of musical excellence Saturday at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
While the group is technically a 10-piece, Jaga Jazzist has enough instruments - and uses them proficiently enough - to supply enough variety for four or five smaller bands.
The band's musicians display a versatility almost unheard of in today's music scene: The tuba player plays maracas, the trumpet player switches between horn, backup keyboards and stand-up bass, and the saxophone player alternates between sax, clarinet and guitar.
While the group has all the pieces a jazz band typically has - drums, trombone, trumpet, saxophone, tuba, flute, bass and guitar - it uses other elements to escape being labeled as a typical jazz band.
The group potentially has three guitars, three keyboards, two vibraphone players and enough effects pedals to supply a small music store. The synthesizer weaves sounds of Mobey-esque electronica in with the jazz sound so well that listeners might wonder how other bands function without one.
Jaga Jazzist's first song, "Going Down," set the tone for the evening. The drumming shifted from laidback cymbal tapping to a full percussion onslaught that filled the room with a sound so huge the Wexner could hardly contain it. The guitars and synthesized effects then came in, adding rich layers of melody to the song.
The stet brass instruments infused the music with an almost tangible feeling of emotion, sweeping listeners away.
This particular style continued through most of the set, and at times the band displayed an uncanny ability to change gears from jazz to rock and back in a way that made the transition seem completely natural.
The group had a knack for crafting brilliantly innovative songs and then making it seem effortlessly normal for them to be doing so.
The final song of the regular set, "Oslo Skyline," was inspired by what drummer Martin Horntveth described as "the smallest skyline in the whole world."It created a mood that was dark, yet not in any way melancholy or foreboding. It seemed to paint a picture of serenity in the midst of chaos.
This ability to describe emotion and create images from raw sound is one that the musicians of Jaga Jazzist have perfectly mastered.
In the band's two-song encore, it blurred the lines of musical genres even further by effortlessly melting together jazz, rock, '80s synth effects and elements of big band swing music into one masterful rollercoaster ride that ended all too soon.
Jaga Jazzist is a collection of songsmiths and musicians in the truest sense of the words.
Heads were nodding, bodies were swaying and toes were tapping from start to finish as these 10 artists from Norway delivered to the Ohio State campus what can only be described as perfection.
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