I heard the young saxophonist Heidi Kvelvane for the first time at the improv festival Tedans (Tea Dance) in Bergen a couple of years ago. It was saxophonist Frode Gjerstad who told me to go and listen to her. And when she stood on stage with bassist Ola Høyer and drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde, in a free and loose set, I was convinced. For what a young and great musician! Her tone on the alto saxophone was powerful, energetic and tough, and in the improvisations she sounded considerably older than her 23 years, as she was at that time.
After the concert I wrote the following on salt peanuts* about her act: “I predict a great future for her within improvised music in Norway. (…) This was a freely improvised set, where we particularly noticed Kvelvane’s fine alto saxophone tone, which was a bit like hearing Frode Gjerstad a few years ago. Sharp on the edge, and with a lovely phrasing and ability to tell good stories, both in the ensemble improvisations and in the solos. (…) The big positive surprise of the evening, and maybe of the festival!»
After the concert, she told me that she was planning to move to Voss – a couple of hours’ drive up into the mountains east of Bergen, and the place where I had chosen to settle down after seven years in Copenhagen. And then we also had the opportunity to meet more often, after all, there aren’t too many jazz enthusiasts living in this village, even though they have their own jazz festival, Vossa Jazz, which has existed for more than 50 years.
Background
Heidi Kvelvane is 25 years old and was born and raised in Sandnes – southeast of Stavanger. She has a saxophone education from the jazz department at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, where she graduated in the spring of 2023. She is now based in Voss, where she makes a living by traveling around playing her saxophones, while also playing folk music on the accordion.
In 2022/23, she played in around 80 performances of the musical Lazarus with music by David Bowie at Den Nasjonale Scene (The National Scene) in Bergen. She has played a lot in church concerts with organists, and has played both concerts and dance music as a folk musician. However, it is as a free jazz musician that she has distinguished herself on the Norwegian jazz and improv scene in recent years. This has led to several international concerts and tours, where she has collaborated with musicians such as Barry Guy, Terrie Ex, Han Bennink, Paal Nilssen-Love and Bugge Wesseltoft. She is also known from the Vestnorsk jazz ensemble, Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit, Bergen Big Band, Kitchen Orchestra, as well as her folk music duo project Bankvelv, her own quartet and more or less two trios in her own name.
From school band to …
In Voss she lives in a caravan, mostly because she does not want to own too much, but also because she travels a lot, and does not need or want too many «worldly goods» or a large space. And in Voss, the local jazz club has brought her into their board, and the club has also engaged her in projects with one of her trios and a workshop project with students at the village’s high school.
We meet her at a café in Voss one morning, when she’s at home for a short while, between gigs in Belgium and concerts with the Bergen Big Band. She says that, like most other Norwegian jazz musicians, she started in a school band, in her case with a clarinet. After a couple of years, the band needed a saxophonist, and she seized the opportunity and became the band’s only saxophonist. In high school, she had saxophonist Tor Ytredal as her music teacher, and she says that without him she probably would never have become a jazz musician. She then studied at the Grieg Academy in Bergen for four years, but much of that time was during the corona pandemic, which she believes was good for her in many ways. She had a lot of time to practice and it actually opened up a number of playing assignments as a substitute, since musicians could not be hired from outside.
In the second year at the academy, Paal Nilssen-Love had a project, and after that he asked if she wanted to come to Stavanger to take part in something they called Jazzkappleiken, and in that connection she played with, among others, saxophonist Kristoffer Alberts, and later with violinist Nils Økland and organist Nils Henrik Asheim. And after that she was lost, and taken by the free improvisation and free jazz.
Why Voss?
The reason she moved to Voss of course had something to do with her wanting to learn to play the accordion. During the corona period, she heard accordionist Jo Asgeir Lie from Voss, giving a concert at the Grieg Academy, which inspired her greatly. She says that she had no previous relationship with the instrument, other than that it was an instrument she thought was only used to play «gammeldans” (old dances). But then she discovered that the accordion has much greater possibilities than a regular accordion. You can play more intricate melody lines and intensity. And this concert really opened up her interest in the accordion. So then it was just a matter of buying an accordion and learning the art.
Accordion and free jazz?
– I think the reason I like both free jazz on saxophone and accordion is because I’m a bit restless and need both, she says. – But I prefer the togetherness that arises when you only improvise freely on stage and only that. When there has been a lot of free improvisation, I often long for something more permanent. So, I need both, really.
We’re talking for a long time about her restlessness. That she plays folk music on the accordion. Relatively straight music in a big band, and her love of free jazz. And in addition, she often plays in the theater in Bergen. So maybe she’s still too young to choose a path forward? But she tells me that she wants to try several genres before she decides which musical path she wants to take. She agrees that she moves freely within many genres. But she feels that she belongs most in improvisational music and jazz. But the reason why she ended up there was really a coincidence. – I never thought I would be good at exactly this or that, but it just happened that way, she says.
Inspirations
She says that she is inspired by many jazz musicians. Lately she has been listening a lot to the German saxophonist Daniel Erdmann. And she has been listening a lot to a record with the Polish saxophonist Angelica Niescier, and of course the drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and the bass player Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten here at home. But there are no records that have become regulars, that she listens to a lot. I prefer to hear the music live. But the record Soapsuds, Soapsuds with Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden duo from 1977, is an exception.
She says that she personally likes the duo and trio format best. And she herself feels that in many ways she knows the clarinet best, but she works hard with both the alto- and tenor saxophone. She thinks the sound of the clarinet is too «flat», and for a long period, when she was most interested in the alto saxophone, there were so many alto saxophonists she listened to who didn’t sound good. – Then I worked a lot on getting a “fatter” sound in the horn, by experimenting with mouthpieces and tiles, and used tenor saxophone tiles on the alto saxophone, to achieve a sound she liked better.
As for the tenor saxophone playing, there was a long period when she almost didn’t want to play the tenor saxophone, because there were so many incredibly talented tenor saxophonists. It’s only in the last year that she has started to focus on the tenor.
Before she have to run to catch the train to Bergen, we talk a little about why there are so many talented female alto saxophonists in Denmark, but almost none here in Norway. But then we agree that it’s completely okay, as long as most of the Danish ones have moved to Norway. But personally, I think there is room for both Mette Rasmussen, Signe Emmeluth, Amalie Dahl and Heidi Kvelvane in the rich flora of incredibly exciting improvised saxophone music from the many young, female saxophonists living in Norway.
Text: Jan Granlie / salt peanuts*
