With its roots in gospel music, jazz has always had a spiritual side. Now a Norwegian jazz pianist is taking the Lutheran hymns of his youth to a wholly new and unexpected level.
Tord Gustavsen wanted to explore and reinterpret those Norwegian Lutheran songs of his youth. Then one day he heard a German-Afghan vocalist, Simin Tander. He loved her phrasing and intonation in the Pashto language.
What would happen, he wondered, if the hymns of his youth were sung in Pashto, a language spoken in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan?