1968 Bengt Nordström “Natural Music” on Bird Notes

What could be better than an insurance-denied angioplasty to clear out the arteries and ear canals than two long solo tracks of totally improvised studio free-blowing? Pretty much nothing, I would say, plus no need to forge a prescription for the after care, just flip the record? On the first side, the Mad Swede Nordström sounds like locked he’s in the hall closet weaving a lattice of angular lines and alto probes over the delicate filigree of the double bass of Sven Hessle, who’s in the kitchen plucking strings and seasoning meatballs. Which is to say the recording comes and goes, in and out and raw. But really, its lack of consistency only augments the music, whose purpose is to float against various currents at a whim.

​Nordström is known to his countrymen as “Frippe”, which has no King Crimson association whatsoever, especially since Frippe is generally the Albert Ayler of Stockholm, which is likewise fortunate as Frippe recorded/produced Ayler’s first record “Something Different”, which is also on Bird Notes, which is Frippe’s doomed but awesome label consisting mostly of a few dozen slick FreeJ 45s, and although it sort of collapsed, is still revered and iconic and shoved him squarely into the coveted title of Godfather Of Swedish Free Jazz and Prime Mover of late 60’s Scandinavian Avant-Garde as a whole. Solo Alto, for sure, is not really something you can dance to. It’s an acquired taste. But what the listener acquires is exactly the thing that everyone from Lonnie Liston Smith to Acid-Coltrane were desperate to achieve, which is a meditative, spiritual, musical connection simultaneously between the here-and-now and the speculative beyond. This record is a stone monument in the middle of a wintry field. Which is to say, it rules.