One Small Step
Improvised music with elements of minimalism, jazz, contemporary music and Norwegian folk.
Tap dance Janne Eraker
Double bass Roger Arntzen
Fiddles Vegar Vårdal
The combination is unusual and fascinating, both for the players and the audience. It’s worth mentioning that despite the big contrast between the appearances of the dancer and the musicians, they speak the same language and communicate clearly with each other in sound and movement. They apply and unify working methods from music and dance in a joint expression, in which the sounds complete each other musically. One Small Step wants to take tap dance out if its original context, where it often is associated with Fred Astaire and Broadway musicals, and instead make way for a musical equality between the three entities - the double bass, the fiddle and sound of the tap dance. The trio deconstructs the tap dance in small fragments, to create new sounds, tones, rhythms and soundscapes. With a minimalistic focus they explore the sonic common denominators and differences between the instruments and the tap dance.
One Small Step will release the album Gol Variations in fall 2022, on the label Clean Feed Records. The track "Morning" was released on the label Esc.rec. as a part of the compilation box "Matter Affect" on July 18.
Review by A Closer Listen:
"One Small Step seems to have the most fun, creating a whistle and percussion pas de deux that comes across as playful pratfalls."
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, the trio is the rhythm section and singer Solveig Slettahjell and guitarist Knut Reiersrud complete the quintet. On the more avantgarde side Arntzen is one of the founding members of the minimalist semi-improv trio Ballrogg, and the jazz rock quartet Chrome Hill.
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 normal fiddle, in addition to having the folk dance as a career. In 2015 he was invited to Venezia biennalen to play in the exhibition in the Nordic Pavillion together with Camille Norment Trio. Vegar received the award for Folk Musician of the year in 2020.
Double bass Roger Arntzen
Fiddles Vegar Vårdal
The combination is unusual and fascinating, both for the players and the audience. It’s worth mentioning that despite the big contrast between the appearances of the dancer and the musicians, they speak the same language and communicate clearly with each other in sound and movement. They apply and unify working methods from music and dance in a joint expression, in which the sounds complete each other musically. One Small Step wants to take tap dance out if its original context, where it often is associated with Fred Astaire and Broadway musicals, and instead make way for a musical equality between the three entities - the double bass, the fiddle and sound of the tap dance. The trio deconstructs the tap dance in small fragments, to create new sounds, tones, rhythms and soundscapes. With a minimalistic focus they explore the sonic common denominators and differences between the instruments and the tap dance.
One Small Step will release the album Gol Variations in fall 2022, on the label Clean Feed Records. The track "Morning" was released on the label Esc.rec. as a part of the compilation box "Matter Affect" on July 18.
Review by A Closer Listen:
"One Small Step seems to have the most fun, creating a whistle and percussion pas de deux that comes across as playful pratfalls."
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, the trio is the rhythm section and singer Solveig Slettahjell and guitarist Knut Reiersrud complete the quintet. On the more avantgarde side Arntzen is one of the founding members of the minimalist semi-improv trio Ballrogg, and the jazz rock quartet Chrome Hill.
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 normal fiddle, in addition to having the folk dance as a career. In 2015 he was invited to Venezia biennalen to play in the exhibition in the Nordic Pavillion together with Camille Norment Trio. Vegar received the award for Folk Musician of the year in 2020.