Words by Justin Turford

Danish musician, composer and educator Torben Westergaard has spent his four decades of music making seeking connectivity. This endless urge for musical connection with each other and with other cultures has led to him releasing 18 albums and visiting 20 countries as a musician. His prolific and sensitive output has included a long term and ongoing exploration of the possibilities between Nordic jazz and Argentinian tango, and in 2022 he took a deep dive into Scandi-Bossa on his gently paced ‘Jazz Brasil’ album.

Music brings us in touch with our feelings, and closer together as human beings. I find it the most meaningful activity I can occupy myself with, and what I have been pursuing for more than 40 years. - Torben Westergaard

Westergaard’s compositional talents have seen him working with various ensembles, TV series, documentaries, and commercials and as the musical director for the legendary Danish singer-songwriter and film director, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen for a number of years. All of these different roles suggest a certain ability to be receptive to others, less about ego and more about understanding, and so it is with his second expedition into the marriage between the expansive melancholia of Scandinavian jazz and traditional Korean folk music. 2019’s first edition ‘The Gori Project’ was a successful blending of late 60s Miles Davis style jazz fusion with Westergaard’s subdued bass funkiness and René Damsbak’s audibly Miles-influenced trumpet alongside the traditional Korean gayagum and percussion. As lovely as the album is, musically it is still recognisable as jazz to the layperson albeit with ambient textures and moments that hinted at where the next episode may venture, especially on the haunting ‘Beyond (Criticism and Praise)’.

'The Gori Project II', in contrast, seems to me to be less a fusion of two separate identities finding a shared middle ground and more of a new singular sound. With the fresh addition of Hyelim Kim on the traditional Korean bamboo flute - the daegeum, and percussionist Marilyn Mazur, we now enter a ‘fourth world’ realm, a place where a new culture has been created from the strands of others: the assembled knowledge of the practitioners shared into a communal bowl.

The word ‘Gori’ translates to ‘connection’ from Korean, and offers an insight into the meaning behind the project. “I believe creativity in the arts and music will be a medium to understand each other. Many cultural and societal issues are caused by misconnection and lack of understanding.” - Hyelim Kim

René Damsbak returns on trumpet, flugelhorn and synths but this time, his tone and tunings are more in familial harmony with the Korean kyemyonjo scale. His trumpet playing on the wonderful ‘Bruised Blue’ reminds me a little of fellow traveller Matthew Halsall, his shared storytelling with Kim’s daegeum radiating an esoteric and emotionally charged atmosphere, the synth pads and lightly balanced keys and voices from Westergaard amplifying the romantic suspense.

Especially acclaimed for his bass playing, Westergaard, in keeping with this environment of egoless collaboration, steps back a lot of the time. On the spectral ‘Democrazy’, his attendance is on the subtle breath of the keys, adding a wheezy resonance to an already wind-filled composition, its horizontal edginess a warning in a dream.

The dynamics between Mazur’s thunderous drum, bells and shakers and Kim’s discordant attacks on album closer ‘Daily News’ feel like a soundtrack to a puppet show (much like the news these days), the trembling theatre of it all designed to jangle the nerves of the audience.

The duelling flutes and trumpet melodies of the sweeping ‘Meskel’ displays the jazzier rhythmic chops of Westergaard and Mazur, their lowkey groove a rock solid foundation for the horns whilst the conversation between Kim’s flute and Westergaard’s electric bass is more pronounced on ‘Flute Me Up’, an odd funk indeed with some great push and pull on the hand percussion.

Over the ten tracks on the album we get this winning combination of dreamy folkloric atmospheres interspersed with an improvisational jazz spirituality. Of nature and also outside itself, the music that these four excellent players have made together is elevated by their selflessness, an ecosystem of musical harmony perfectly balanced in all its strength and fragility. 9/10

** An extra shout out to neue.pink for the incredible cover art!

BUY HERE! https://torbenwestergaard.bandcamp.com/album/the-gori-project-ii