Seeing, the new album by Norwegian jazz pianist Tord Gustavsen, is an explicitly Christian work of art. The album begins with “Jesus, Gjør Meg Stille,” a traditional Norwegian hymn, and carries one through chorals after Johann Sebastian Bach. There are also originals like the lovely “The Old Church” and “Beneath Your Wisdom,” the 19^th century English choral “Nearer My God, to Thee.“ 

Gustavsen plays with Jarle Vespestad on drums and Steinar Raknes on double bass in a blend of jazz, blues, gospel, Scandinavian folk, and church music. It is an exquisite record and my pick for album of the year. All About Jazz put it well: “Seeing is a timeless listen [and] may very well be Gustavsen and company’s high-water mark at this particular point in our troubled timeline.”

I recently spoke to Gustavsen about Seeing and the importance of Christianity to his life and music.

Chronicles: The first thing that was obvious to me is that Seeing is a Christian record. Just the song titles. The reviews have been fantastic for this record, but I notice that some don’t quite grasp how Christian Seeing is. Can you comment on that?

Tord Gustavsen: Thank you so much for reaching out—and thanks for listening with open ears!

I grew up playing and singing in church—Sunday school; gatherings; family occasions etc. Lutheran hymns and chorals based on Norwegian folk tunes coexisted with African-American spirituals and gospel music in our musical and spiritual universe. Together, these songs form a cornerstone in my spiritual self; and they are also my deepest ‘standards’ as a jazz musician. This has been evident throughout my musical journey, but I guess it shines through even more clearly on the most recent album. 

Chronicles: You grew up in the Lutheran church in Norway?

Gustavsen: I was born in Oslo (the capital of Norway), but we moved to a village called Hurdal when I was two years old. I grew up there—with lots of forests and stillness, but in a family with five children and lots of music, so not so quiet indoors.

Going into early adulthood with critical thinking and radical openness, I was blessed to find open-minded and culturally inclusive corners of the Lutheran church, so I could stay connected to church while searching and asking critical questions. I did university studies in psychology, sociology, and comparative religion before turning full time to music around the age of 23.

Then, I studied jazz, improvisation, compositional theory, and philosophy of music for some years—stretching out and breaking new grounds musically. But somehow the real ‘click’ happened a few years after completing the studies, when I found new ways of integrating open, airy, spacious, suggestive playing with solid, sensuous foundations in hymnal structures. 

Chronicles: There is also a sadness in your music—the best kind of sadness, a contemplative sadness.

Gustavsen: [My style] happened in a synchronicity between musical processes and personal experiences with tragic loss and grief—the urge for both music and spirituality that offer support without cliches—real comfort, honest in going through grief instead of pretending or bypassing. All this was very acutely intensified. It brought my pluralist mindset in touch with childlike trust and devotional practice; and in music it brought Impressionist inspirations; bi-tonal openness and modal melancholy into intimate union with an undercurrent of subtle gospel feeling. 

In later years, interest in Buddhism, Sufism, meditation, and also Christian Mysticism has grown in me. I have also gone further in my church connection, actually taking on a small position as cantor/church musician in a beautiful medieval church outside of Oslo where I live, though I still tour and play full-time with my band and other projects). The beauty is that there is no contradiction here.

Chronicles: Your music is hard to classify—and I mean that as a compliment. It flows seamlessly and beautifully yet there is a lot going on. There is foundation in Seeing of the Christian church, but also Bach, folk music, lots of stuff.

Gustavsen: There is an ongoing flow of mass, funerals, liturgical music meditations, and meditational concerts. I also program a festival of contemplative music across genres out of this church, with anything from Gregorian chant via Ragas, Sufi music, Norwegian folk, lyrical jazz, Bach, to Messiaen and beyond in trance-inducing contemporary ‘classic’ music.

More fundamentally—and holding all this together: playing is a lot like meditation or prayer to me. It is about surrendering to the deepest un-sweetened beauty (which is something very different from prettiness). It is about breathing deeply and listening more than you talk/play. It is about sub-ordinating your ego to the greater flow and tune yourself to what the music asks of you, rather than showing off. It is about being played just as much as it is about playing. 

Chronicles: You mention an experience of personal grief. Can you discuss this?

Gustavsen: My brother was killed in 2003, at the age of 29, along with his 9-month-old baby, and also our grandmother, by a mentally ill woman in a manic state who was driving in the wrong direction on the highway. It was a terrible tragedy that threw me and the rest of the family into a deep, difficult, and long process of grief.

Chronicles: What does Jesus Christ mean to you?

Gustavsen: So much. Important historic figure and revolutionary. Spiritual presence today. The way and the light. The true vine. Inspiration and example. Deep comfort. Challenge. God incarnated in flesh—God in second person, directly accessible in dialogue.