Artist statement: The Year of the Boar is for me one of my most important (I wont say the best...) recordings because it reflects my time in Chicago and is the only recording that consists solely of my own compositions. It's a live recording and "maybe a little to long" for the CD format but I think it captures a very good picture of that quintet in a live situation and I'm very happy about the result, both musically and as a production. I think the sound is really good for a live recording! "Prayer" is of course an important composition for me because it's a tribute to my father who died when I was 20. I feel this version is a very respectful one. This tune was also recorded on South African reedist Zim Ngqawana's Ingoma release on the South African label Sheer Sound and also on Atomic's first release, Feet Music.

Bio: Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b. 1971 in Oppdal, Norway) is currently based in Oslo. He has participated on about 100 recordings and is today receiving great international attention through the Scandinavian groups: Atomic, The Thing, and Scorch Trio. His work with Ken Vandermark has the last years earned him great recognition and Ingebrigt has played an important part in the ongoing collaboration between Chicago and Scandinavia resulting in groups like Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Quintet, AtomicSchoolDays, Free Fall and Powerhouse Sound.

Ingebrigt went on the road early, touring the European circuit with famed Norwegian keyboardist Bugge Wesseltoft and his New Conceptions of Jazz. He was also part of ECM recording artist "Trygve Seim Orchestra" and The Source, as well as the cult group Element run by Norwegian reedist Gisle Johansen. Ingebrigt has been exposed to a great variety of projects, which among other things have included working with South African reedist Zim Ngqawana and touring India with violin player Dr. L. Subramaniam.

Besides doing solo performances and leading his own quintet Ingebrigt has also played, recorded and toured with Peter Brötzman, Evan Parker, Joe McPhee, Paul Lytton, Akira Sakata, Jim O'Rourke, Otomo Yoshihide, Dave Liebman, Daniel Levin, Gerald Clever, Fred Anderson, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Tony Malaby, Jim Baker, Jeb Bishop, Nasheet Waits, Joe Lovano, Stephen Gauci, Jeff Parker, John Herndon, Axel Dörner, John Scofield, Yusef Lateef, Joshua Redman, Billy Cobham, and Chris Potter just to mention a few.

Interview

This composition seems to have been written with group dynamic in mind. You have a simple but haunting melody that is repeated throughout while, below, the bass interprets the harmonic cycle in double stops. Beyond that, the success of this piece is due to what you and the other musicians have brought to its basic form. How much of the intensity heard here was "on the page" when you first presented it to this group in comparison to what later developed as everyone grew more familiar with the piece? How does this live version differ from what you had in mind when you wrote it?

The composition is very simple. Just the melody and the bass line are written down, the rest is up to the players. I listened to a lot of Charlie Haden at the time I wrote it and the bass line was very inspired by his playing. The composition is different on all the three recordings its on: Zim Ngqawana's Ingoma, Atomic's Feet Music, and my own quintet. The melody together with the rhythmic pattern creates a certain sound, which I feel that all these three versions have managed to pick up on.

Did you write "Prayer" specifically for this group? How about the rest of the compositions featured on The Year of the Boar? If so, how did that affect the way you typically compose?

I wrote "Prayer" before any of these groups existed and didn't have a particular idea about instrumentation etc. This is the case for most of my compositions. They appear and then I have to try to make them work in different contexts. I want the musicians I work with to react to my compositions and bring in their own ideas to push them different directions, this is also the case for all the material from The Year of the Boar and this recording is a result of the band being on the road for two weeks before the concert where the music was recorded. I feel that it's a strong documentation of a group shaping the material together.

Could you talk a little bit about the other musicians in this quintet?

When I moved to Chicago I only knew Dave Rempis from before, after a two and a half week US double-tour we did together in the groups Atomic and Vandermark 5 a few years earlier. Dave is an incredibly strong and musical player with a big dynamic range, and after I moved to Chicago we decided to start up a trio together with Frank Rosaly, whom I didn't know then but immediately felt a strong musical connection with. It was an easy choice to use this trio as the core for my new lineup.

I knew Jeff briefly from before through Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound which I was a member of for a short while. I was also familiar with his work from Tortoise and Chicago Underground. I liked Jeff's approach as an improviser and really think he is one of a kind when it comes to melting the sound of a jazz-guitar with more rock and electronic aesthetics in a really original and musical way. Ola Kvernberg was also on my first quintet CD and I wanted to still have a violin in the group. He is an enormously gifted violin player with roots from the "old masters" and I really think he adds a lot to the group!

In your statement about the recording, you mention that the album is a reflection of your time in Chicago. What brought you to Chicago in the first place? Had you played with Jeff, Dave, or Frank before you arrived?

It feels like this simply because this album was done while I had my base in Chicago. The city has been very important to me for many reasons, and it has a great scene for improvised music with a strong community. I knew a lot of the musicians from there from before I moved, specially the scene around Ken Vandermark, and one day I made a choice to move there. I lived there for about three years. It was an immensely inspiring and musically very important experience to be a part of that community and I feel that the experience I had there is coloring the album both through the compositions I wrote while living there but also how all the players in the band shape the music.

Your bio also cites a creative interchange between Chicago and Scandinavia. Could you elaborate on this collaboration and how it came about?

I first went to Chicago in 1999, then as a stand-in for Peter Janson on a US tour with the group AALY Trio together with Mats Gustafson and Kjell Nordesson, both Swedish. Mats had already been going back and forth to Chicago for a long time then, doing work with a huge number of people from the improvised scene, ranging from Jim O'Rourke and John Corbett to Hamid Drake and Fred Andersen, and he had invited Ken Vandermark to be a guest in AALY Trio. I was introduced to all these musicians and to a new world which was a big kick and just what I needed then and which again later resulted in the groups School Days, The Thing, Free Fall, AtomicSchooldays, Powerhouse Sound, and my own quintet. All have been important groups showing the collaboration between Chicago and Scandinavia for many years. Another important factor in this is how Ken Vandermark used his MacArthur Grant to establish and take a lot of groups from both continents on the road laying down a great foundation for later work. Especially, how he used the grant money to take the ten piece group Peter Brötzman Chicago Tentet and his own Territory Band on the road both in US and Europe. This was quite impressive and very important for the European improvised scene as well!!

You're definitely one of the more versatile bass players out there. For those who haven't had a chance to see you play, one glance at the list of artists you've performed with should be proof enough. In your mind, is there a different approach to playing with an improviser like Peter Brötzman than there is with one like Dr. L. Subramaniam, or does it all come down to one's ability to respond to a musical situation?

I think if you are an improvising musician it all comes down to responding to a musical situation at the moment where you are, but there are of course big differences in the approaches of different musicians. There are also other aspects like coincidence and life in general, as when I suddenly happened to be at the right time and place in India when I was in New Delhi studying with the classical singer Madhumita Ray. I was invited to play this tour with Dr. L. Subramaniam and then suddenly found myself playing electric bass with Subramaniam and Billy Cobham in front of 2,000 Indians at the Gate of India in Bombay, which was quite surreal but forced me to play and respond in a completely new and different environment with players I had never dreamt of playing with. I also did solo pieces on this tour, which was extremely challenging to do in front of an audience who had never heard anything like that before, and didn't have any references whatsoever towards that genre. Anyway, Dr L. Subramaniam is one of the masters of his instrument and an enormously generous human being so it was a big honor for me to be a part of this even if it at times felt more like a surreal experience than a musical highlight.

Playing with people like Peter Brötzman, Fred Anderson, Joe McPhee, or Evan Parker gives me the feeling of being close to something real and timeless in music no matter which style or genre, and this has a huge and very important impact on you as an improviser!!

While "Prayer" is relatively accessible, many of the groups you play with favor loosely composed and freely improvised music. What attracts you to these forms of expression?

I love freedom in music, and I like the freedom that improvised music gives me. I love a big range of different music when it comes to listening but I find it more problematic to make music with that same freshness if you try to copy something you've already heard. I know that most musicians I play with also love to listen to different music no matter the style and I think the awareness as a musician and as a band of trying to push the music using all your palette of references is very important and a good way to create an identity. Friction is also a very important element for me, and I prefer to listen to some funky and sloppy jazz or soul music from the 60's than any overly-produced pop or jazz from today, and I hope that reflects in my playing too.

Not everyone is a fan of this type of music. What have been some of the hurdles you've had to clear in your attempts to advocate this underappreciated art form?

I think that calling it an underappreciated art form is wrong. I am traveling about 200 days a year meeting people everywhere all over the world who love this music and I am feeling it is an important and alive art-form today. I seriously don't care about those who don't like it. I believe that they are missing out on a lot of good stuff in their lives, which is of course sad, but what can I do more than be playing as much as I can, hoping that more and more people will become aware of it! To me it's a very spiritual music and I have so many examples of situations where we have played in front of people who have never been exposed to it before and who have been totally blown away by it.

It's likely that many of our readers are relatively unfamiliar with improvised music in general. If means of expression like "straight-ahead" jazz and Hindustani music are already a stretch for them, the "freer" music being created today will certainly present a challenge. What advice do you have for those with little exposure to freely improvised music? What are some of the things you'd suggest they listen for in order to enrich their experience?

I would recommend they listen to James Brown, Korean Court Music, Fela Kuti, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Led Zeppelin, Glenn Gould, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Steve Lacy, Jorge Ben, Dr. L. Subramaniam (his classical work, not the fusion), and so on and so on. This is just a fragment. Anyway, this is all beautiful and honest music ranging from totally improvised, to world, to funk, to rock, to jazz, to classical etc. I don't believe that you only have to listen to totally improvised music to be able to appreciate it. I think that the best way of being introduced to that kind of music is through a live experience and I believe that the most important thing that you can do is to be as open as possible, not without criticism, but trying to challenge yourself both as a listener and as a player! I think most people will find that very rewarding!!

For the sake of any musicians out there reading this, could you describe your practice regimen? Are there any exercises you'd recommend to other improvisers?

Practice your instrument to know it well is of course essential, and I believe there are several ways of doing this which I think most musicians are able to figure out by themselves. My advice would be to listen to all the music you can, play with people that challenge you, and attend live music!! Try to understand what musicians you admire have done to get where they are and try figuring out a way to get there yourself.

In your opinion, is the global audience for creative music shrinking or growing? Other than continuing to produce quality music, how have you and other musicians you've known succeeded in reaching new audiences?

I think the global audience for creative music is very healthy today. People seem to be looking for something else than the mass-produced shit that most commercial labels put out and what is being played on the radio around the world. I especially find the audiences in the U.S., Japan, and Eastern Europe very inspiring to play for! Most bands I am in have been on the touring circuit for years and that is also how we slowly have been building an audience and I think this is maybe the only way to do it today.

Aside from the projects you're currently involved in, what are you most excited about in the music world today?

The communication technology today that makes it possible for everybody no matter where you are to easily stay in touch, to travel, to make plans, start collaborations, and be checking out what kind of music people are dealing with around the world, both old and new, etc. excites me a lot! But, it's a huge responsibility too. People should be more critical concerning its quality. The dark side and risk is if it makes people sit inside in front of their computer instead of actively searching for people and music. But I still strongly believe that most people want to be social and want to attend live music which I feel reflects in how many new/young listeners are approaching our music around the world today.

Could you describe the music you'd like to be a part of in the future?

I would be more than happy and thankful if I'm still a part of the music I'm trying to figure out today. The music will change shapes and colors and I'm curious to see where it is in 30 years from now. And there are a lot of musicians I still hope I will be able to play with!!!