The Runner’s Report: Jazz is a Blue Sky

An Opening, a Glade, an Awakening

Despite a sun that shone only through its absence, Alexandraparken bubbled with life on the brink of Moldejazz 2024’s official opening. Moldensers of all ages gathered in an atmosphere brimming with customary hums and murmurs, drink orders, and a subtle undercurrent of Radka Toneff’s "The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress" playing in the background. (The moon, after all, does as it pleases with us but is also at the mercy of the sun.)

A parade led by our managing director, accompanied by a cycling Kristine Sandøy, this year’s festival artist – her bike adorned with an eye-catching ochre trombone (a sun, a guiding star?) – culminated with our guest of honor and keynote speaker, bassist Arild Andersen.

Even under thick cloud cover, warmth and calm enthusiasm permeated the festival’s first day. Jazz’s sky remains blue, even when it appears gray.

That’s where my thoughts wandered as Andersen shared Arild Vold’s response to the question, “What do you like about jazz?” Vold replied: “What do you like about a blue sky?”

Jazz is indeed a blue sky, I thought. Infinite in its blueness. Bottomless – Goethe’s “compelling nothingness” – yet brimming with potential for both friction and smoothness. Monochromatic only momentarily, before blue shifts to purple. Blueredblue. Short blue waves meet long red ones in purple, reminding us the distance between them isn’t so vast after all.

I float, carried by the currents of sea and air, standing there in Alexandraparken.

The vast, untamed sea is blue – the cradle of life. It is also gray, green, nearly black, and sometimes painted with fiery yellows and pinks by the sun’s mood. The sea mirrors the sky, which reflects the sea back in an endless tunnel of light.

Hard and soft, vast and minute coexist in blue. And in jazz.

All this daydreaming quickly spirals out of control. Drifts off course, nearly capsizing.

Beautiful Dreams (and Dreamers)

Perhaps not. Artist in Residence, a self-proclaimed dreamer, described his first encounter with Moldejazz in such terms 43 years ago. Guided by threads woven by an already distinguished Andersen, Bill Frisell found himself suddenly on the phone, wondering: “What is Molde?... Am I dreaming?”

Dreams often appear full of loose threads. But so do the most intricate tapestries. Weavers know that rich, complex images require many threads crossing and interlacing.

It is jazz’s privilege – its mandate – to embrace loose threads. As musicians, listeners, organizers, and critics. This entails ruthless self-reflection paired with compassion.

Whether the format is grand, like Frisell’s symphonic dream in Bjørnsonhuset; intimate, like the boiling acoustic units at Fuzzy; or futuristic, fantastical creations like I Like To Sleep’s Pieces of a Scattered Dream, our shared dream is to create something together.

To weave with tenderness and strength.

As the week unfolds, I hope it feels like a lucid dream – still in the blue.

Karoline Ruderaas Jerve holds a degree in musicology from UiO. Beyond her work on the program committee, she writes and contributes to Jazznytt and freelances for platforms like jazzinorge.no, ballade.no, and musikkontoret.no. As a performer, she is part of Oslo 14 Vokalensemble, the regional vocal ensemble of Østnorsk Jazzsenter.