Motvind Records

The jazz flute, then. This slightly shy, rather rare wind instrument in the jazz fauna, which sticks out only here and there. Maybe a saxophonist got an old flute for Christmas and wanted to try something new, or another found interest in folk music and wanted to get down to the roots of her expression. But the pure jazz flutist, one that only belongs to this oldest of the woodwind instruments, yes there it is rather ragged in the ranks.

But there is one that has kept true for a long time. Henriette Eilertsen (b. 1993) was the first in Norway to get a bachelor's degree in jazz flute, at the Norwegian Academy of Music. She herself says that:

Although the much more dominant big brother the saxophone has previously tried to lure me away from the pure flute path, I have insisted on conveying the very brightest frequencies among the jazz wind instruments.

Many have noticed that, and many are glad that she did. When Eilertsen now makes her debut with the album Poems for Flute, she fully shows that she has found a direction. Even though she has her flute heroes - like Joe Farrell, Eric Dolphy and Elena Pinderhughes, she stakes out a path on her own when she shows what she wants the jazz flute to be in 2021.

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