THE GALUMPHING DUO: MOWDAY AND BJELKERUD

The Galumphing Duo is an improvising jazz partnership featuring South African born Shannon Mowday (Saxophones) and Norwegian Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone). Despite coming from different backgrounds and generations, they have found common ground in composition and improvisation.

The concept

Galumphing, created by Stephen Nachmanovitch and presented in his book Free Play, can be described as ‘inexhaustible play energy’ as seen in toddlers and small animals. This serves as the core concept of their interaction which allows for spontaneous and playful interplay in improvisation, composition and arrangement: both heeding to form and structure yet also allowing the freedom to go where the moment directs them.

Inspired by the one stroke flow of Japanese Enso (circle), letting go of all expectations, they aimed to create an album stripped of overproduction, allowing the vulnerability and honesty of their innate musicality and interplay to be exposed and highlighting the beauty of imperfection.

Dual improvisation

The ensemble has developed a concept of dual improvisation which seeks to blur the boundaries of stylistic genres whilst assimilating aspects of jazz history with musical cells borrowed from, for example, Bach and contrapuntal music or the strong influence of Mowday’s South African roots and their shared Nordic influences.

In the compositions and arrangements, sometimes through-composed and other times just sketches, they seek to find the extremes of their instruments in register, sound and technical proficiency and combine the elements of perfect intimacy with the raw or unpolished aspects of being in the moment yet in a playful manner. They juxtapose dense sonic environments with light and minimalistic space using their instruments in non-conventional ways.

All of these qualities display a Contrast of Opposites which is the inspiration behind the title of their debut album released by AMP records.