This live recording of Arnold Ludvig’s quintet at Maggies Café in Nólsoy, Faroe Islands, reflects both community and individualism. It’s evident in the way his quintet performed all of Ludvig’s 7 tunes on this night. The flow and the interplay between all 5 musicians is quite sublime at times. The band is like a family, a really well functioning unit. The soloing by each musician reflects individual artistic expression and they give us personal interpretations of the tunes. It is a real pleasure to listen to the joyous playfulness by the quintet on this live recording.

All 7 compositions by Arnold Ludvig are written at different times in different cities, like Reykjavík, Montreal, Copenhagen and Tórshavn between 1993 and 2014. The tunes bring the listener on a musical journey, from Celtic folk music through modern Nordic inspired jazz, and back to African-American blues inspired jazz. The tunes reflect the composer’s search for his innermost true self expression as a jazz composer. Some of the compositions just came to him in a flash, “like from above”, in his own words. The quintet’s performance reflects that same flow of consciousness at Maggies that night in 2018.