Ketil BjornstadNightwalker
Cat-Nr:GRCD4766
Barcode:7033662047666
Release datum:8/11/2023
Label:Grappa
Labelcode:49093
Genre:Jazz/Allgemein

“A nightwalker can hold an entire life in his head while he is walking. This suite is based on both dreams and experiences, states of mind we all have, with their sudden shifts, and often with a dramatic arc we don’t understand, because it is only afterwards that we can grasp what happened and why things turned out as they did. The entire suite was written in the course of the winter, spring and summer of 2022, that dark year that none of us had envisaged.

Even before we moved to Frogner Plass in 1967, I liked going out at night. Especially in the autumn, when the wind was blowing and leaves were falling from the trees, but also during the winter, spring and summer nights, often in the streets of Oslo, or near one of the cottages at Eftang, a coastal paradise between Sandefjord and Larvik, where a young girl I was very interested in used to go on holiday with her family. Knut Hamsun wrote the novel Dreamers, and I was no doubt then, as I am now, a dreamer who absorbed all my impressions from nature, where I spent time alone and had thoughts I could not entirely understand myself. Besides, music was my constant companion. When Frogner Park became my nearest neighbour in 1967 and the following years, I walked amongst Gustav Vigeland’s sculptures up to the Monolith, the highest point in the park, where the human bodies carved in stone climb upwards, ever upwards: a further development of Munch’s Human Mountain, which Munch was displeased that his colleague copied. But there, at the top of the park, I had a view over the city, the spire of Uranienborg Church and the hill of Ekeberg. I could look out over the fjord as far as Nesodden and watch the lights of the last flights landing at Fornebu, the old, atmospheric airport with a runway that continued all the way out into the water. What did I do up there at that lookout point, often all alone? Just a solitary nightwalker.

I often dream that I still walk at night, but mostly in the landscape of music.

January 2023 arrived. The snow arrived. Catharina went out into our garden by Bunnefjorden and took a photo of the young blackbird that was perched in a fruit tree, whose beak had not yet turned yellow. For me this was a greeting from the past, from Brahms, from Frogner Plass and Frogner Park from those days. Blackbird singing in the dead of night…

CD2 contains the Nightwalker suite played on the classic Fender Rhodes piano, sent through an equally classic Leslie that creates this almost ghostly intensity and a unique atmosphere which give the suite a totally different vibe.

  • CD 1 Nightwalker
  • 1NIGHTWALKER (TWILIGHT VERSION)03:41
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 2A CERTAIN MOOD02:08
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 3REGRET02:03
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 4TRUST02:40
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 5PROMISE05:30
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 6HER SMILE (COW CRADLE SONG)04:57
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 7DARKNESS02:57
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 8ON THE EDGE03:51
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 9THE LETTER02:26
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 10NIGHTWALKER (PAST MIDNIGHT VERSION)01:45
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 11THE SECRET02:52
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 12EXPECTATIONS AND ANXIETY04:25
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 13LONGING01:30
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 14APOLOGY04:35
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 15SO WHAT02:41
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 16UNDERSTANDING03:20
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 17THE SUITCASE02:48
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 18THE REPLY02:37
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 19ON THE MOUNTAIN02:18
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 20CONSEQUENCE02:19
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 21A HIDDEN PLACE03:10
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 22BETWEEN THE LINES01:28
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 23NIGHTWALKER (EARLY MORNING VERSION)01:56
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • CD 2 Nightwalker - Fender Rhodes-version
  • 1NIGHTWALKER (TWILIGHT VERSION) (Fender Version)03:30
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 2A CERTAIN MOOD (Fender Version)02:03
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 3REGRET (Fender Version)01:54
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 4TRUST (Fender Version)02:39
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 5PROMISE (Fender Version)03:59
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 6HER SMILE (COW CRADLE SONG) (Fender Version)05:01
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 7DARKNESS (Fender Version)03:08
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 8ON THE EDGE (Fender Version)03:45
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 9THE LETTER (Fender Version)02:35
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 10NIGHTWALKER (PAST MIDNIGHT VERSION) (Fender Version)02:13
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 11THE SECRET (Fender Version)02:55
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 12EXPECTATIONS AND ANXIETY (Fender Version)03:17
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 13LONGING (Fender Version)01:43
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 14APOLOGY (Fender Version)02:53
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 15SO WHAT (Fender Version)02:38
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 16UNDERSTANDING (Fender Version)03:28
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 17THE SUITCASE (Fender Version)02:39
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 18THE REPLY (Fender Version)02:22
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 19ON THE MOUNTAIN (Fender Version)03:15
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 20CONSEQUENCE (Fender Version)01:46
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 21A HIDDEN PLACE (Fender Version)03:18
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 22BETWEEN THE LINES (Fender Version)01:34
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
  • 23NIGHTWALKER (EARLY MORNING VERSION) (Fender Version)01:56
    Music: Ketil Bjornstad
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Booklet
Producer
  • Bjornstad, Ketil
Mixer
  • Mike Hartung
Recording Studio
  • Propeller Studio, Oslo, Norway
Mastering
  • Mike Hartung
Photography
  • Catharina Jacobsen (Coverfoto)
  • Erik Holst (Frogner Plass 1967)
  • Tor Stenersen (Portrait)
Cover Artwork
  • Rune Mortensen
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