By Eyal Hareuveni
Action Now!, the name of Norwegian double bass player (and guitarist)
Nicolas Leirtrø’s new power quartet, relates to The Thing’s Action Jazz
album (Smalltown Supersound, 2006), which defined this form of Nordic
high-energy free jazz. The debut, double album of Action Now!, Entrance, is
another homage to Leirtrø’s hero, Mats Gustafsson, who has played in The
Thing, and to the title of the second album of Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra,
Enter (Rune Grammofon, 2014). Leirtrø himself has played in Gustafsson’s
Hidros 9 Mirrors (Trost, 2023).
So it was only natural that Gustafsson would be part of the new Action Now!
alongside British organist Kit Downes, and young, rising Norwegian drummer
Veslemøy Narvesen, who plays with Leirtrø in Danish sax player Amalie Dahl’s
Dafnie quintet and collaborated with him on her debut album, We Don’t
Imagine Anymore. Leirtrø also plays in the local power trio I Like to Sleep
(who toured with Gustafsson’s Fire! trio) and the Noize R Us quartet (with
Dahl).
This cross-generational quartet does not attempt to resurrect the explosive,
cathartic sonic storms of The Thing or the visionary, orchestral, and
genre-binding journeys of the Fire! Orchestra, but to offer its own
uncompromising take on 21st-century free jazz. It embraces slow processes in
all aspects of creation and sets aside the constant, urgent search for
cathartic climaxes. Leirtrø expressed this approach in his commanding,
exploratory double bass solo, aptly titled “Basssolo”, which clearly owes
much to the physical, totally possessed playing of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten,
co-founder of The Thing, and Downes does so in his “Organ Cycle” solo piece.
Action Now! sounds like a working band. Obviously, there are clear
references to the hypnotic grooves and the infectious and transcendental
riffs of Gustafsson’s Fire! Trio, when Gustafsson picks his baritone sax, as
well as to the Afro-American late 1960’s and early 1970s spiritual free jazz
with its repetitive motifs, intensified by Gustafsson’s flute playing
(including the Swedish folk flute, spilåpipa) and with Downes’ spectral
organ sounds. Only the last piece, “End Dance”, gravitates toward an
uplifting, cathartic climax. But Action Now! relies on Leirtrø’s visual
concepts and graphic scores, setting the foundation for the eight
improvisations (one of these graphic scores is seen on the album’s cover).
The album was recorded in a two-day session at Øra Studio in Trondheim in
May 2025 after a short tour.