Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Vocalist Simin Tander brought disarming depth and entrancing spirit to the Vossa Jazz Festival in Voss, Norway, on March 20.
(Photo: Courtesy of Vossa Jazz Fest)In Voss, Endresen was appearing as part of a long multi-artist show celebrating the Norwegian label Jazzland— a list that includes keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft and electronics/remixologist master Jan Bang (the co-founder and director of the legendary, specialized Punkt Festival in Norway). The duo matchup of Endresen and Bang made for one of the stranger, unexpected and—for those of us who are believers—ecstatic events of the weekend.
Whereas normally, the singer works with instrumentalists, here, she provided the live putty that Bang then reshaped, remixed, looped and fed back parts into the mix. Between the already enigmatic vocal parts and tones naturally put forth by Endresen and Bang’s deconstructionist instincts, what resulted was a free-spirited giddy madness.
This year, Osasalen’s special and acoustically-warm wood-lined room played host to artists as diverse as the potent and memorable “free jazz” duet of reed player Frode Gjerstag Og and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, the lyrical piano neo-trio-ism of the Eivind Austad Trio, and the distinctive dusky theatricality of Morten Qvenild’s “The Hyper(sonal) Piano” set. In a darkened room, with a headlamp over his heavily prepared piano and electronics labyrinth, Qvenild channeled some art pop-meets-sound world experimentalism turf where echoes of Bruce Hornsby, Robert Wyatt, Harold Budd, Conlon Nancarrow and Brad Mehldau (lite) merge, in an evocative fog.
A magnetic nucleus of Voss is its remarkable stone church (built circa 1277), the Vangskyrkja, site of a special “jazz mass” for the Sunday morning congregation and what was likely the festival’s greatest “secret treasure” show.
Ironically, marketing may have kept some away in the show dubbed “Tenor Battle” and sporting its protagonist, Håkon Kornstad in mannered 18th-century wig and attire/attitude. What might have appeared like a PDQ Bach-style novelty act was something else entirely. Said “battling tenors” are contained in one skin: Kornstad is both a fine tenor player, and an operatic tenor (verging on counter tenor), who miraculously drew together the worlds of opera arias and jazz expression, a rare feat of a jazz-ical crossover venture with artistic integrity and heart intact.
The ambience of the church turned an unusual yet highly musical project into a special, site-specific, “only in Voss” experience.
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
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Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
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