* Edition of 100 copies, silk-screened cover, hand numbered and intended for musicians and their families. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert. Among the audiences at the jazz venue Jazz i Reprisen, housed in the Reprise Movie Theatre north of Copenhagen during the late 1960s, one could occasionally hear people remark that the musicians on stage were "Tordenskjold's Soldiers"— meaning the same familiar faces, Saturday after Saturday. That was far from true, although a number of musicians did appear frequently, largely because there were so few rhythm sections available at the time. When Reprisen closed in early 1970, several of its leading musicians began appearing at Copenhagen's renowned Jazzhus Montmartre. Among them was a quartet that, with a touch of irony, adopted the name Tordenskjolds Soldater. The group consisted of tenor saxophonist and leader Jesper Nehammer, pianist and composer Ole Matthiessen, bassist Henrik Hove and drummer Jon Finsen. Henrik Hove, in particular, lived up to the expression. Between 1967 and 1970 he played at no fewer than 83 of the first 100 concerts presented at Reprisen — simply because there were so few bassists in Denmark at the time, and even fewer of Henrik's calibre. Jon Finsen was also one of the venue's regular drummers. Henrik Hove and Jon Finsen played with Ole Matthiessen in many orchestras: Hove/Matthiessen played in the Carsten Meinert Quartet and C.M. MusicTrain and Finsen/Matthiessen in John Tchicai's Cadentia Nova Danica… so the quartet's name was not entirely inappropriate.

The quartet played the weekly Monday gig at Montmartre from April and throughout the summer of 1970. The recordings presented here, however, were made live in late April, shortly before the group entered the studio to record the album “Peace” for the legendary imprint Spectator Records. All four compositions also appeared on that album, albeit in shorter studio versions.

Pianist and composer Ole Matthiessen wrote all four pieces. He explains that “Brother Yusef” was, naturally, a tribute to Yusef Lateef; “Memories of Isadora Duncan” was inspired by a television documentary about the legendary dancer's tragic life; “A Message for Mike” was dedicated to Henrik Hove's younger brother, alto saxophonist Michael Hove, who also appeared frequently at Reprisen; and “Pharoah” paid tribute to one of the musicians who most inspired the members of Tordenskjolds Soldater—tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. The piece in 5/4 incorporates a melodic reference to Sanders' composition “Upper Egypt” and was written as a feature for Jesper Nehammer. Ole Matthiessen possessed a remarkable gift for absorbing the evolving sounds of late-1960s jazz and the emerging jazz-rock movement of the early 1970s, transforming the musical language of his American inspirations into compositions that were unmistakably his own.

Matthiessen has personally overseen the restoration of the original Montmartre tapes for this LP—recorded 56 years ago by drummer Ole Streenberg— and did the remastering. He describes the process as "a time-consuming task to make them sound the way the music still sounds in my memory." He continues: "There still exist a few dropouts and occasional distortions. What matters most to me, however, is that the music's power and intensity have been preserved."

Tordenskjolds Soldater is the perfect example of the musical crossroads around 1970, when the jazz scene in Denmark was changing rapidly, jazz was embracing and blending a wide range of new styles and many young Danish musicians began to experiment with mixing elements of rock, soul, latin, world music and modern jazz traditions.

“More Peace”, the second LP by Tordenskjolds Soldater on formalibera, recorded at Café Montmartre in Copenhagen in April 1970, features four tracks from the original “Peace” LP presented here in much longer durations and pure ecstatic mind-bending form. Tordenskjolds Soldater as you have never heard before… and their final LP!

Edition of 100 copies, silk-screened cover, hand numbered and intended for musicians and their families. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert.