Household Name is presumably
Petter Wettre's first recording leading a quintet. It is also the first album he released on his own label, Household, after years of struggles with small record labels. He first conveyed this group in 2001 for a concert at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, where he had won the Klart Svar Jazz Prize the year before. He kept the unit working and in April 2002 brought it in the studio for a two-day session that yielded this album. The group consists of relatively familiar faces of the Scandinavian modern jazz scene: pianist
Håvard Wiik, guitarist Palle Pesonen, bassist Per Zanussi, and drummer
Anders Mogensen, who also plays in
Wettre's trio. This repertoire, all
Wettre originals except for
Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," rests on modern swing and quirky bop more than on the avant-garde leanings of the saxophonist's trio -- the best example of that: he sticks to his sax, not even whipping out his raspier bass clarinet once. Most of the tunes leave plenty of room for
Wiik to stretch his
McCoy Tyner-esque chops. "Strike Up the Band" and "Kosher" (the latter also featured on the
Petter Wettre Trio CD
Live at Copenhagen Jazzhouse, released simultaneously) are lively numbers full of twists and turns, but the quintet does a better job tackling the moodier pieces, like "Back in the Saddle Again" and "Former Teen Sensation." And
Wettre's 90-second solo introduction to "Lush Life" shows a soulful understanding of its melodic richness. Very pleasant but not the sax player's most compelling recording,
Household Name can serve as a good introduction for more conservative jazz fans. ~ François Couture