Ornette Coleman’s partnership with Don Cherry had in the frontline formed by John Zorn and Dave Douglas in the band Masada a welcomed heritage. Now is Cortex’s turn to continue that lineage concerning the interactive work between an alto alto and baritone (Kristoffer Alberts) and a trumpet (or, in the case of Thomas Johansson, a cornet). With double bassist Ola Høyer and drummer Gard Nilssen, these four Norwegian musicians are notable representatives of a new generation of Scandinavian jazzmen who are refreshing the scene at the same time they’re preserving the identity of a music idiom subjected to many changes in its worldwide evolution, either gaining local colors or mixing with other genres and styles. Cortex plays new jazz with the tools and forms of the old one. More exactly: this quartet practices a creative, exploratory jazz concept with the patine of the former years of free jazz, when the bop matrix was very much in evidence. Like in those times, the music in “Live!” is specially intense and powerful, with an “in-your-face” attitude never giving us a moment of rest. At the end of the album, we’re not tired. It’s the other way around: we get energized and joyful, ready for what’s coming next.Content goes here