Ola Kvernberg

Norwegian violinist Ola Kvernberg launched his classical training at age six yet found himself drawn toward jazz by sixteen. Before enrolling in the jazz program at Trondheim Musikkonservatorium in 2001 he had already cultivated a taste for acoustic Continental jazz phrasing, and at eighteen he joined Hot Club de Norvège guitarist Jimmy Rosenberg for a series of performances. Those encounters led to several years of recording and touring with the ensemble. While still completing coursework he launched his own discography, issuing a self-titled album on Hot Club Records in 2001 and, the following year, Cats & Doug, the first release by the Ola Kvernberg Trio, also on Hot Club.

After graduation he explored broader improvisational possibilities as a member of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Throughout the rest of the decade he maintained an active trio schedule, documenting the Jazzland sessions Night Driver in 2006 and Folk in 2009. His most widely recognized work arrived when Trondheim Jazzfest and Moldejazz jointly commissioned the large-scale suite Liarbird, unveiled in 2010 with an ensemble that featured U.S. saxophonist Joshua Redman. The Jazzland edition of Liarbird earned the 2011 Spellemannprisen for Jazz Album of the Year.

Kvernberg has likewise maintained a presence on the rock side of the spectrum. He contributed prominently to the 2012 Motorpsycho release The Death Defying Unicorn, a collaboration between the Trondheim-based space-psych-prog outfit and keyboardist Ståle Storløkken. Fellow Trondheim Musikkonservatorium alumnus and Motorpsycho drummer Kenneth Kapstad invited Kvernberg to join the Kenneth Kapstad Group for a 2010 Trondheim Jazzfest appearance alongside keyboardist Erland Slettevoll, bassist Trond Frønes, and guitarist Even Helte Hermansen. The musicians soon dropped the original band name in favor of Grand General; under that moniker they entered Rune Grammofon’s catalog with the self-titled debut album in February 2013. On that record, whose compositions were shared between Kvernberg and Frønes, the quintet’s sound evoked the Mahavishnu Orchestra era featuring violinist Jerry Goodman while adding greater density, weight, and force—fusion fused with metal, space rock, and prog.