In 1990 jazz pianist Knut Kristiansen was engaged to document the music of the Kuria people in Nyanza, Kenya. This work resulted in a book and a music cassette, which is now being issued in a remastered version as a CD. The Kuria music impressed Kristiansen deeply. When he was commissioned to write a work to be played by Bergen Big Band at the Vossa Jazz Festival in 2011, he decided to immerse himself more fully in the material, and to use it as a point of departure for the work. The fact that the city of Bergen is the home of one of Europe’s foremost interpreters of Thelonius Monk’s music is an important part of Knut Kristiansen’s story, but not the whole story.
Throughout a long life as a musician he has laid the groundwork for a lively jazz community, and has helped to strengthen music education in the city. In his early thirties he developed a deep interest in African and Cuban music. In 1982 he founded the two legendary projects Gambian-Norwegian Friendship Orchestra and Son Mu. Knut Kristiansen won the Buddy Award in 1983, and the Vossa Jazz Prize in 1990. The album was recorded at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s studio in Bergen with technician Per Ravnaas, and was mixed and mastered at Rainbow Studio in Oslo by Jan Erik Kongshaug.