Alaska jazz composer and trumpet player Yngvil Vatn Guttu kicks off the Alaska Original concert series Thursday @360. She’ll be joined by the Rob Cohen Trio, which includes Juneau’s Rob Cohen on piano, Alexei Painter on bass and Clay Good on drums. Guttu says she is excited to play with the guys.
“We agreed that we’re going to really go for it. We’re going to be fearless but not stupid, as in the sense we’ll just want to play together,” Guttu said.
Guttu was born in Oslo, Norway, but has lived in New York, London and Toronto, and now calls Homer and Anchorage home. She says her jazz has been affected by all of these places. Drummer Clay Good says collaborating with Guttu and her eclectic style has been fun.
“Here we are faced with some really great compositions — really challenging compositions that we’ve had a chance to run through before Yngvil got to town, but mostly just to scare ourselves by trying to play them. Her pieces are formidable and it’s really exciting to be given the opportunity to take a stab at them for sure,” Good said.
Not only will the concert be a collaboration with the band, Guttu says the audience is in on it too.
“I think this is a cool chance for everybody to get together and try to experience being in the same space together when we make music. And that’s what we need an audience for — we need people to come and give us nonverbal feedback. When you listen you’re doing a lot more than you think. You know, we who play music we feel how our music strikes you and it’s a kind of nonverbal feedback,” Guttu said.
Listen to Guttu’s full Juneau Afternoon interview with examples of her music here:
The concert begins at 7 p.m. Thursday in the @360 studio at KTOO.
Tickets at KTOO.org.
