Odd with the bass trombone

I'm not a volunteer, I'm dependent, smiles Odd. And I have been for a long time.

At an early age, Odd took the trip via heavy and prog rock in the bomb room (Klubb Tilflukt), to live jazz music at Odd Fellow. The Jazz Club used to be there at the time and it was the only place in the city that had proper music, at least to my taste, says Odd. The path from the first meeting with the jazz group led me straight to the board and at that time you automatically became an official in the festival. The jazz club is still alive and well and is now located at Energimølla. The best of Norwegian jazz is served there, programmed by the firebrand Tor Dalaker Lund & co.  

Odd joined the KAOS group in 75 and was later recruited by Gunnar Sembsmoen to the sales group in 79, where he is still today. He has also been a club host for the exotic concerts in the mines. He sat on the board of the "old" festival for most of the 80s until the festival actually collapsed in 91 and after "a lot of handwringing" the festival was saved by the establishment of the Stiftelsen Kongsberg Jazz Festival in the winter of 91/92. Odd was chairman of the board for the first 2 years in 92-93 and was back as chairman in 2005-2007. He has the festival under his skin. 

A bit of everything has happened over the years and a walking story that is often told to new jazz generations is the time a person was lost in the mines, smiles Odd. Even though there were a little less rules and a little more sleight of hand in the old days, you had such an overview that there was one less person out than in. They searched and searched, but in the end they just had to get out. Fortunately, the missing miner was observed slightly saloon-drunk in town the next day. Then there were probably many who let out a sigh of relief, smiles Odd.

But one thing Odd remembers well himself are some of the episodes in KAOS in the 70s. Among other things, KAOS only had one car at the time and it was an open-plan VW pickup. There was a lot of piano moving between venues on this car. If the weather was nice and you had time for it, you could drive a few laps in the city with 7-8 people (complete KAOS) on the plane, while one sat and played the piano. The police were not so careful about it at the time and HSE had not been invented yet. Both the festival and those who worked as clerks should probably be happy about the latter, otherwise everyone would have been pretty thin on the ground.

"We'll stop by the sales group to ask Odd", we've heard people say during the festival. And rightfully so! If there's something you're wondering about what's happening where or when, and what you MUST get from all the brilliant jazz during the festival, go to the sales team and ask for Odd. If he's not there, he'll be right back. He has only taken a short trip to Gamle Norge to play bass trombone with the Kongsberg Storband.