One Small Step
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Gol Variations - tap dance like you’ve never heard it before!
Tap dance Janne Eraker Double bass Roger Arntzen Fiddles Vegar Vårdal Did you know that there’s a tap dance trio in Norway? One Small Step has been busy exploring tap as percussion in music for years, and has finally made their first album Gol Variations. Tap dancer Janne Eraker, double bass player Roger Arntzen and fiddler Vegar Vårdal have improvised and recorded beautiful, exciting and groovy music in Gol stave church - the one that resides in the Norwegian folk museum. Audun Strype is responsible for the sound engineering, and has had a great time with the sound of that tare-covered wooden church from 1884 (originally built in Gol around 1200!). With background ranging from a wide spectrum One Small Step plays with minimal music, Norwegian folk music, jazz inspirations, and of course rhythms of all sorts. They challenge each other in their musical interaction and dive into musical escapades consisting of texture, tonality, imaginative suggestions and exhausting stretches. The audience easily joins them, for One Small Step creates an unpretentious and inviting atmosphere that directs all of the attention to the new music. When One Small Step started recording their debut album the intention was to make one that gives room to the long lines in their music. The original plan was even to have just one track on each side of a vinyl record, rather than to be guided by the more traditional shorter tracks. One Small Step had to leave the vinyl project, but made an audiophile CD with the same thoughts in mind. They even added extra seconds in the middle of the album to give the illusion of changing to side B, to get closer to the experience originally intended. One Small Step thereby invites you to an epic journey in their universe. "Gol Variations" was released on the label Clean Feed Records on November 18 and is available on all platforms. The track "Morning" was released on the label Esc.rec. as a part of the compilation box "Matter Affect" on July 18. 
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Previously played at:
2023 November 3: Movements for Listening release concert, Gamle Munch, Oslo July 1: Causa Efeito, Portugal February 3: release of the single Chair Variations 2022 December 2: Splendor, Amsterdam December 1: Kopi Soesoe, Rotterdam November 30: Petersburg Art Space, Berlin November 29: The Floor, Leipzig November 28: Kafé Hærverk, Oslo November 18: Gol Variations, debut album released July 18: single released on "Matter Affect", a compilation box by Esc.rec. 2020 May 25: Hausmania, Oslo 2019 September 26: NMH, Oslo August 5: Gamle-Kleppe, Vågå June 8: Kopi Soesoe, Rotterdam June 3: with Thomas Marek, Kafé Hærverk, Oslo May 27, 28: Athens May 2018 June 3: Seamens Church, Berlin June 2: Blue Tap, Berlin May 27: De Ruimte, Amsterdam May 26: Seamens Church, Rotterdam May 25: Kopi Soesoe, Rotterdam May 20: Kafé Hærverk, Oslo 2016 May 20: with Heather Cornell and Thomas Wadelton (tap, Australia), Deichman, Oslo |
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Reviews
Jazz.pt (in Portugese)
Album review
Anyone who still remembers the way David Moss plays the drums or even when Han Bennink leaves his drum kit and starts to play on everything around him, gets an idea of the sound universe of “One Small Step”. ... Very beautiful because it puts us in a medicinal sound asylum, full of curious musical events, strange sounds, where there is an enormous capacity to make music with what results from the movement of the body, with architecture and with the moment.
The Free Jazz Collective
Concert review
It was energetic, colorful, theatrical and a sight to behold. The best thing about it all, was that it also made sense in a musical way. You saw and heard three musicians performing, with the difference that one of them was also a dancer. An arresting performance, I’ve never really seen anything like it.
Jazz.pt (in Portugese)
Concert review
The Norwegian musicians have an enormous capacity to explore unforeseen solutions and, at the same time, a great musical sense. One Small Step's music was always beautiful to listen to and based on melody. They are a group with an enormous performance potential that makes us curious where they will go. It was a privilege to hear this concert...
Jazzword
Album review
...the group can now offer a full – albeit acoustic – multi-media experience. That experience is succinctly captured on this CD. Introduced with some bird-like whistling, double bass strokes and harsh wooden heel stomps and completed by staccato heel-and-toe clacks as regularized as drum beats, “Heija” and “Yarny”, the lengthy middle tracks allow the trio members to stretch out their art to its best advantage.
Nettavisen
Album review
Fire totalt improviserte "låter" på fra to minutter til vel 16 minutter skaper stemninger, spenninger og musikk som fjetrer og som utfordrer - sikkert for de tre involverte også og definitivt for meg som lytter.
Downtown Music Gallery
Album review
This long piece is like a journey unfolding with the footsteps making a central pulse, the kind of groove we have while riding on a metaphorical horse. Although I never thought about it, the sound of feet tapping on the floor evokes a variety of images both rhythmically and the feeling of being in motion, whether walking or dancing. I found this disc to be impressive, a nice way to take ourselves into another place in our imagination.
Ballade
Album review
Her er ho perkusjonist. Ho har ein vanvittig groove, og lydvariasjonen ho får fram med å treffe med skoen på golvet i ulike vinklar utgjer eit rimelig fett trommesett!
Jazzinorge
Album review
Denne trioen har noe eget å fortelle og gjør det med leken kvalitet.
Percorsi Musicali,
Album review
Dalla Norvegia arriva un’altra dimostrazione di creatività estesa e multidisciplinare.
Jazz.pt (in Portugese)
Album review
Anyone who still remembers the way David Moss plays the drums or even when Han Bennink leaves his drum kit and starts to play on everything around him, gets an idea of the sound universe of “One Small Step”. ... Very beautiful because it puts us in a medicinal sound asylum, full of curious musical events, strange sounds, where there is an enormous capacity to make music with what results from the movement of the body, with architecture and with the moment.
The Free Jazz Collective
Concert review
It was energetic, colorful, theatrical and a sight to behold. The best thing about it all, was that it also made sense in a musical way. You saw and heard three musicians performing, with the difference that one of them was also a dancer. An arresting performance, I’ve never really seen anything like it.
Jazz.pt (in Portugese)
Concert review
The Norwegian musicians have an enormous capacity to explore unforeseen solutions and, at the same time, a great musical sense. One Small Step's music was always beautiful to listen to and based on melody. They are a group with an enormous performance potential that makes us curious where they will go. It was a privilege to hear this concert...
Jazzword
Album review
...the group can now offer a full – albeit acoustic – multi-media experience. That experience is succinctly captured on this CD. Introduced with some bird-like whistling, double bass strokes and harsh wooden heel stomps and completed by staccato heel-and-toe clacks as regularized as drum beats, “Heija” and “Yarny”, the lengthy middle tracks allow the trio members to stretch out their art to its best advantage.
Nettavisen
Album review
Fire totalt improviserte "låter" på fra to minutter til vel 16 minutter skaper stemninger, spenninger og musikk som fjetrer og som utfordrer - sikkert for de tre involverte også og definitivt for meg som lytter.
Downtown Music Gallery
Album review
This long piece is like a journey unfolding with the footsteps making a central pulse, the kind of groove we have while riding on a metaphorical horse. Although I never thought about it, the sound of feet tapping on the floor evokes a variety of images both rhythmically and the feeling of being in motion, whether walking or dancing. I found this disc to be impressive, a nice way to take ourselves into another place in our imagination.
Ballade
Album review
Her er ho perkusjonist. Ho har ein vanvittig groove, og lydvariasjonen ho får fram med å treffe med skoen på golvet i ulike vinklar utgjer eit rimelig fett trommesett!
Jazzinorge
Album review
Denne trioen har noe eget å fortelle og gjør det med leken kvalitet.
Percorsi Musicali,
Album review
Dalla Norvegia arriva un’altra dimostrazione di creatività estesa e multidisciplinare.
Roger Arntzen is a double bass player known from the Norwegian piano trio In the Country, which started out as an alternative prog jazz piano trio and was awarded Young Jazz Musicians Of The Year early on in Norway. In the project band Trail of Souls, In the Country forms the rhythm section and singer Solveig Slettahjell and guitarist Knut Reiersrud complete the quintet. On the more avant-garde side Arntzen is one of the founding members of the minimalist semi-improv trio Ballrogg, and the jazz rock quartet Chrome Hill. Recent years he has also collaborated in trios and quartets with the unique Japanese koto player Michiyo Yagi and drummers Tamaya Honda and Noritaka Tanaka.
Vegar Vårdal is a fiddler with an energy and a musical language that can tackle folk music with improvisation, playfulness, rhythm and dialogue. It is important for Vårdal to work in multiple genres, with folk music as a base. Vårdal has his roots deep in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen in Vågå, and his musicianship is reflected in a variety of collaborations that have spread their musicality across Europe. He plays both Hardanger fiddle and regular fiddle, in addition to having a career as a folk dancer. In 2015 he was invited to the Venezia Biennale to play in the exhibition in the Nordic Pavilion together with Camille Norment Trio. Vegar received the award for Folk Musician of the year in 2020.
Janne Eraker is a tap dancer with a background in modern and contemporary dance. She works as a musician and dance artist in projects in Norway and abroad. Eraker uses tap dance as both music and dance, in varying degrees, depending on the project. Her main music projects are Øy (el. music), One Small Step, and a huge solo album titled Movements for Listening. As a tap dancer she also dances with the Sebastian Weber Dance Company as well as in her own works Rhythm is a Dancer and Tap Noir. She received a 3 year Artist grant from Arts Council Norway, and is the first tap dancer to be included as a musician in the Norwegian Jazz Forum and to be employed by the Alliance for Actors and Dancers. She also leads the studio collective Dansens Haus, which resides in a 70m2 studio in the heart of Oslo.
Vegar Vårdal is a fiddler with an energy and a musical language that can tackle folk music with improvisation, playfulness, rhythm and dialogue. It is important for Vårdal to work in multiple genres, with folk music as a base. Vårdal has his roots deep in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen in Vågå, and his musicianship is reflected in a variety of collaborations that have spread their musicality across Europe. He plays both Hardanger fiddle and regular fiddle, in addition to having a career as a folk dancer. In 2015 he was invited to the Venezia Biennale to play in the exhibition in the Nordic Pavilion together with Camille Norment Trio. Vegar received the award for Folk Musician of the year in 2020.
Janne Eraker is a tap dancer with a background in modern and contemporary dance. She works as a musician and dance artist in projects in Norway and abroad. Eraker uses tap dance as both music and dance, in varying degrees, depending on the project. Her main music projects are Øy (el. music), One Small Step, and a huge solo album titled Movements for Listening. As a tap dancer she also dances with the Sebastian Weber Dance Company as well as in her own works Rhythm is a Dancer and Tap Noir. She received a 3 year Artist grant from Arts Council Norway, and is the first tap dancer to be included as a musician in the Norwegian Jazz Forum and to be employed by the Alliance for Actors and Dancers. She also leads the studio collective Dansens Haus, which resides in a 70m2 studio in the heart of Oslo.
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