JazzTimes Magazine

It's almost embarassing when someone displays such gross missing of the point as Aaron Steinberg does in his Nils Petter Molvaer concert review, published in Jazz Times. In his account of the beat-driven concert, the near constant dance track thud is as specific as he gets about that element. I can understand lamenting the scarcity of acoustic sounds, as the moments described sound tantalizing:

He saved his unfiltered trumpet sound—breathy and ancient sounding—for only a few occasions, and when he played, it left listeners aching for more
(...)
some of the most beautiful moments of the night, the beat dried up as Qvenild draped spare, almost hymnlike chords beneath Molvaer’s trumpet. A little more of that would have gone a long way.

But if all you can hear is a thud where I am sure (based on Molvaer's Solid Ether) there was far more variety, are you really competent to review the concert? It sounds like Steinberg was listening for the wrong things, even if some of his comments seem astute (I've never seen Molvaer live). For example when he says that

Arnesen, in the unenviable position of playing alongside DJ Strangefruit and Jan Bang’s foregrounded rhythm, proved remarkably able. The drummer found all sorts of opportunity for smaller accents anticipating or tailing the beat

He shows that he can only imagine this kind of line-up as a struggle in which acoustic instruments are fighting for survival in the face of all-conquering electronics. If that's your mind-set going in, it seems obvious that not much enjoyment will be derived.

Later on, he complains that A concert hall full of people staring at a man bent at the waist and staring into a computer screen does not make for good entertainment, which is funny because one could easily argue that watching a man stand more or less still in front of a microphone wiggling his fingers on a trumpet is equally poor entertainment. Seems like a case, not of what is actually entertaining, but rather what one is used to finding entertaining, visually. Furthermore, if you're not a trumpeter, and the player isn't doing anything beyond wiggling his fingers, does this visual really give you, as a spectator, more insight into the performance than watching someone fiddle around on a laptop (and assuming you can see the screen)?

One comment I found weird:

There were practically no concessions to the concert hall environment. In other words, the band treated the gig like a club date, complete with filtered, spinning lights and trippy, abstract visuals projected behind the musicians.

Are spinning lights and visuals standard parts of club gigs? That's news to me.