Tomasz Furmanek: Rohey are possibly unfamiliar to LondonJazz News readers. Please tell us about them.
TF: Where do they come from?
BW: I believe they come from all over Norway, and even from Sweden. They all met up in Trondheim, where they studied jazz. It was my colleague Sten who booked them, and I think it’s their exceptional talent and exciting music combined with hard work and real focus on music that made us wanting to sign them. They do have a very fresh and lovely energy and it’s interesting to see how they interpret soul music in the 21st century.
TF: Jazzland recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, was there a special anniversary album released?
BW: I guess that both Jazzland20: 1996-2016 and the 20th anniversary edition of my record New Conception of Jazz were the anniversary albums. We also had quite a few very nice anniversary concerts. My initial idea, back then, was to release my own album and to do it well. At that time, there weren’t really any labels releasing the type of music I was playing. Then, after a while, other people started sending me demos, like Beate Lech, for example. She sent me a demo with her music, I liked it, and we decided to work with that... That’s how it started. We are so happy that we are still around and that what we do still seem to be relevant for the audiences!
TF: Within those 20 years Jazzland documented many of your collaborations with exceptional artist, like Sidsel Endresen for example...Would you say something about this very unique singer?
TF: Please tell us about your newest album on ACT Music Everybody Loves Angels.
BW: This album is a direct descendant of a twenty year old Christmas album It’s Snowing on My Piano which I recorded back in 1997, and which was without doubt my best selling and most popular album so far. It feels good to do a “follow up album” twenty years later – time really flies... Everybody Loves Angels is not a Christmas album but a collection of popular songs I grew up with since childhood, interpreted in the same very ambient and minimalistic way as was on the Christmas album. It was recorded on the beautiful Lofoten islands, north of Norway, and I hope that album captures and brings out the nature of the place and our care for its beauty.