Description
The English word ‘windfall’ describes ripe fruit being blown off trees. As a sweet apple that has fallen off your neighbours tree into your garden can be a pretty nice thing, ‘windfall’ also serves as a metaphor for an unexpected opportunity.
Ensemble Denada’s music is full of windfall. There is plenty of lucky accidents and coincidents, sounds and noises that go together in the most unexpected ways. Even the songs themselves often derive from obscure chances and stories. To say it in the band’s own words “A swimming moose, swimming a West Norwegian fjord can become a jazz song in 5/4, a typing error on a sheet of music can lead into a song about a sofa on a wild sleigh ride down a steep hill.”
Of course a musical project can never fully rely on the concept of luck, someone needs to pull the strings and grab the opportunities as they come along. For Ensemble Denada this someone is trombone player Helge Sunde. Being the musical mastermind behind the Norwegian jazz orchestra, Sunde is responsible for all compositions and arrangements.