Time for a bit of jazz, methinks.
Norwegian trio Datadyr was the second signing on the newly formed Is it Jazz? Records in 2022 and the label went on to release the band’s first album ‘Woolgathering’ in June of that year.
Their second album, ‘This we know’ will be released on 25th April, and this, the second track on it, has been released as an intriguing first taster.
Intriguing for me especially because ‘Star spangled banjo’ ticks a lot of boxes politically.
I’ve followed the at times incomprehensible machinations of the US political process for the last eight years, for most of that time broadly supporting the present day incumbent at the White House.
Never in a month of Sundays though did I expect the gaggle that is President Trump’s current circle of Cabinet associates to degenerate into the rabble it has become, led by Trump himself who is unrecognisable on the international circuit compared to Trump 1.0, firing off from the hip at anyone from Europe who comes within his sights.
Which I suppose includes me after this.
The Zelenskyy showdown at high noon, the kowtowing to Putin, changing his mind on tariffs like he changes (I assume) his socks, lambasting everything and anyone that crosses him as a ‘screwball’ – you could write a book on it already and we’ve only just begun.
I imagine that nerves are starting to fray a bit in Norway, what with his barely disguised threats of annexation of Canada and Greenland. If Greenland goes Iceland could well be next with its naturally generated power and then it’s only a step further to Norway with its abundant oil and border with Russia.
Worrying times but the guys at Datadyr have chosen to meet the threat head on in the best possible way – with humour.
The band is inspired by traditional American music like jazz, blues, bluegrass and folk and with ‘Star Spangled Banjo’ they have conjured up the sort of childlike tune that would well go with a comic video of Donald, perhaps a cartoon character like the one that was invented for George Bush in the TV animation 2DTV.
The makers of that series would have had George dancing away in his cot to ‘Star Spangled Banjo’.
It all gets a little frenetic, the rapidly picked banjo of the title having to compete with bass and drums as if mimicking Donald trying to make himself heard over J.D. and Pete in the Oval Office as a press conference collapses into another slanging match.
And all this without a single word being sung.
They acknowledge that it’s easy to get caught up in the old romantic image of America, especially having grown up in Norway surrounded by and idolising American art and media and the entire album concerns the process of realisation and eventually acceptance that a place that produced so much of what you love is now responsible for so much of what you hate.
The day the Norwegian Ambassador leaves on the last helicopter out of Washington he should make a point of presenting ‘This we know’ to the President.
All three members studied jazz at the Grieg Academy.
Those members are:
Øystein Høynes – bass
Amund Nordstrøm – drums
Odd Erlend Mikkelsen – guitars.
They are joined by Aksel Røed on sax on two of the nine album tracks.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Datadyrmusic
Bandcamp: https://datadyr.bandcamp.com/
