SVEIN FINNERUD TRIO

1970 Scandi jazz classic rises again.

1970 was a pivotal year for jazz as its traditional templates shattered into kaleidoscopic pieces that chimed with turbulent times. Although the exploits of Miles Davis and co are well-documented, every corner of Europe seemed to harbour coteries of fearless jazz warriors straining for liberation on unknown musical planes.

After gestating in 1967 in Norway, the Svein Finnerud Trio – featuring its late pianist leader, bassist Bjørnar Andresen and drummer Espen Rudd – recorded their second album, Plastic Sun, one February 1970 day, before it was released on Sonet.

The free spirits of inspiration were obviously flaming on that day as, for 35 minutes, the trio exercised their Paul Bley fixation by covering the pianist’s then-wife Annette Peacock’s Cartoon and Touching. Apart from Ornette Coleman’s Dee Dee, the other five tracks were their own compositions, from funky workouts to free-form starbursts.

After starting with the languid reflection of Bernhard and exhaling the sublime chamber jazz crescendo of Alnafet Street, the trio dive into their 10-minute funky workout around Cartoon, which swiftly dismembers itself into improvised scrabbling as musical fragments scatter like ectoplasmic litter in the wind, the musicians reducing their respective solos to parallel dimension matchwood, all topped by gabbling alien vocals. Even in anarchic 1970 free jazz, SHT were cavorting in areas only the UK’s most gleefully free-form mischief-makers dared frolic.

After the title track settles as a breezy, Latin groover and further vocal strangeness graces Touching,

Dee Dee’s almost 14-minute romp uses Ornette’s original as a launch-pad for more fractured anarchy. Finnerud’s Parelius N starts as a muted rumble before the LP closes with a minute of Strings, showing the humour considered vital to balance the weirdness.

Svein Finnerud Trio shoot relentlessly and they usually score, although that does depend on where the listener has planted their goalposts.