La notte is an eight-part suite by the Norwegian pianist and writer Ketil Bjørnstad, written as a salute to the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni and recorded live at the Molde International Jazz Festival, which commissioned it. Bjørnstad called it "the soundtrack to an inner film", in which Antonioni's images and atmospheres pass through his own moods and memories.
Bjørnstad has said that he discovered Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Bresson at the same time as he discovered what jazz could be, through Miles Davis's In A Silent Way. For Molde he gathered a Norwegian, Danish, German and British band of musicians closely tied to ECM: Andy Sheppard on tenor and soprano saxophones, Anja Lechner on cello, Eivind Aarset on guitars and electronics, Arild Andersen on double bass and Marilyn Mazur on percussion and drums. The concert took place on 21 July 2010. Jan Erik Kongshaug mixed it at Rainbow Studio in Oslo with Bjørnstad and Manfred Eicher, who produced the album.
The suite moves between chamber intimacy and real turbulence. It opens sparsely, on low bowed bass and electronic hum, and the full weight of the band arrives only when Sheppard's tenor enters in the second part. Lechner is Bjørnstad's closest partner throughout, joining his piano solo in the fourth part and sharing a long duo passage at the heart of the sixth. Aarset's layered guitar soars over the louder episodes, while Mazur ranges from small, detailed sounds to heavy drumming, and Sheppard's soprano carries several of the later melodies.
The Molde performance was described by All About Jazz as "absolutely stunning". Reviewing the album for London Jazz in 2013, Chris Parker noted that Andersen brought over forty years of ECM experience to the band and called the record a "consistently affecting, sometimes downright mesmerising, live performance." In Jazzthing, Rolf Thomas heard sound worlds between chamber-music intimacy and turbulent power, and praised Andersen and Mazur as an exquisite rhythm pairing.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2300, released on 12 April 2013, in a jewel case with a 20-page booklet. The cover image shows Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni in Antonioni's film La notte.
