Stars Aligned Frode Kjekstad

• 1 The Phineas Trane 07:09
• 2 Open Ocean 04:07
• 3 Blues4u 05:40
• 4 Bonebreaker 05:36
• 5 Moon Song 06:25
• 6 Stars Aligned 06:30
• 7 Hammond Cheese 05:53
• 8 Foggy Morning In The Woods 05:48
• 9 Jingles 06:28
• Total Runtime 53:36

Info for Stars Aligned

What a perfectly apt album title. We have our ‘stars’; four of them. They’re aligned. All independent factors have come together – at the ideal moment.

Norwegian guitarist Frode Kjekstad has worked with luminaries including Joe Farnsworth, Frank Foster, Johnny Griffin and Lonnie Smith (2004 album New York Time also featuring Eric Alexander).

English organ and piano maestro Roy Powell’s collaborations have included performances with Arild Andersen, Eddie Daniels, Art Farmer and Dave Liebman.

German drummer Frederik Villmow owns an equally impressive credit list: Dave Kikoski, Benny Benack III, Chris Potter and Vince Mendoza.

American saxophonist Eric Alexander has performed and recorded with a celestial constellation including: Harold Mabern, Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton and Pat Martino.

What elements combine to produce a perfect jazz album? Concise, motivative themes (‘head-solos-head’ arrangements), intricate phrasing, freedom for soloists to improvise over (complex) chord progressions, interdisciplinary elegance and symbiosis. Stars Aligned is truly an exemplary example.

The jazzily-titled opener, The Phineas Trane, explodes with all the above-mentioned ingredients with powerful and punchy solos from all.

Your perfect jazz album might well contain a joyous tune in 3/4 time, a jazz waltz – Open Ocean is exactly that.

If you like solid, walking-tempo Blues – check out Blues4u!

Let’s trade bars of Funk with bars of Swing and we have Bonebreaker.

We need a seductive, contemplative ballad. Moon Song more than fits the bill.

The eponymous Stars Aligned is a fast-paced bluesy outing in a minor key – with major delivery.

Latin overtones infuse Hammond Cheese with its groovy head and heady solos.

Back to a ballad, the exquisite Foggy Morning in the Woods feels – exactly like that.

Jingles, with it’s call-and-response head is a minor key (non-melancholic!) intense, blistering excursion (underlined by the spontaneous, triumphant ‘yeah’ at the end).

Connect virtuosity, immaculate timing, positivity with a soupçon of serendipity – and the stars align. A perfect jazz album.

Frode Kjekstad, guitar
Eric Alexander, tenor saxophone
Roy Powell, organ
Frederik Villmow, drums

Frode Kjekstad
was born in Lier, Norway in 1974. He was already captured by the music of Charlie Parker and Joe Pass when he picked up the guitar at the age of 14, and the year after he started studying jazzguitar.

He moved to Oslo in 1994. Studying music at the University, teacher and trumpeter Torgrim Sollid introduced him to New York-guitarist Randy Johnston. This meeting was a great inspiration, leading to lessons as well as a great friendship.

Playing regularly for 4 years with Sandvika Bigband, considered Norway's best band in it's genre, Frode had the opportunity to play with international jazz stars as Diane Shuur, Frank Foster, Johnny Griffin, Don Menza, Rob McConnel, Jim Morrison, Mark Nightingale, Claire Martin, Deborah Brown, Uffe Johanson and many others.

Frode has played with a number of american players in Norway in different settings, among these Gerald Willson, Wendell Brunious, Grant Stewart, Randy Johnston, and others!

In 1999 he joined a trio led by Scandinavian jazz-organ king Paul Wagnberg's trio.

Working as a freelance jazzguitarist at cafés, in bigbands, trad-bands, and be-bop combos from 1990, Frode also started teaching jazzguitar in 1992, and has been teaching guitar in many different institutions since then. He is now teaching guitar at the college Rud vgs near Oslo.

This album contains no booklet.