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Jan Lundgren On Storytelling In Jazz Improvisation
by Sven Bjerstedt
It was nice to finally, after all these years, have the opportunity to sit down with the celebrated jazz pianist Jan Lundgren and talk about what it actually is that we do as jazz musicians when we improvise. Jan and I have known each other for almost four decades now. Jan was born in 1966; I'm four years his senior. I recall that when Jan turned up as a brilliant young pianist in Malmö (southern Sweden) in the late '80s, ...
Continue ReadingJan Lundgren & Yamandu Costa: Inner Spirits
by Neil Duggan
They are probably not the most obvious pairing, but pianist Jan Lundgren from Sweden and guitarist Yamandu Costa from Brazil comprehensively prove that the obvious is not always the best. Their album, Inner Spirits, displays a rare kind of chemistry and mutual understanding that defines the concept of musical partnership. It is often the case that piano-guitar duets do not work too well; both instruments seem to compete for the same space. When it works well, the results ...
Continue ReadingJan Lundgren: Into the Night
by Phillip Woolever
This excellent album is part of a series of modern jazz projects with a twist, featuring live recordings by many of the German label ACT's top artists, in unique, uncategorized, and often first time formations. The album comes from a 2020 set at the Ystad Festival in Sweden, which homegrown pianist Jan Lundgren founded and has directed since 2010. This trio actually arose out of necessity after a musician in Lundgren's originally scheduled group, which included Lars Danielsson, ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell & Philip Catherine: The Last Call
by Phillip Woolever
ACT Music released this exceptional concert recording four years to the day after the February 19, 2017 death of 73-year old master guitarist Larry Coryell. The album documents a sensational set Coryell played with the equally skillful Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine at the Berlin Philharmonic. The event was an unplanned but fitting conclusion to their series of collaborations that began at the same location some forty-five years before. The sound dynamics and song selections create a vivid testimonial of musical ...
Continue ReadingJan Lundgren: Potsdamer Platz
by Bruce Lindsay
Pianist Jan Lundgren is a fine example of a classically-trained European musician with a strong empathy with mainstream jazz. Potsdamer Platz is, in turn, a fine example of Lundgren's ability to compose fresh-sounding and often beautiful tunes, allied to a talented quartet of players who know just how to bring the pianist's ideas to life. The all-Scandinavian band is terrific--Finnish saxophonist Jukka Perko, Danish drummer Morten Lund and Lundgren's fellow Swede Dan Berglund on bass. The quartet decamped ...
Continue ReadingArtistry Jazz Group and Friends: Tribute!
by Chris Mosey
An absolute gem, featuring some of the best players in Scandinavia in an extremely well thought-out program of music, paying tribute to “musicians and artists who shaped new sounds and ideas." It's the brainchild of independent record producer Torgil Rosenberg and pianist Jan Lundgren. Three top Swedish musicians, Peter Asplund on trumpet, Klas Lindqvist on alto sax and clarinet, and Janne Bengtsson on flute, join Lundgren's already all-star Artistry group, filling out the sound on selected numbers. ...
Continue ReadingJan Lundgren / Bengt Hallberg: Back 2 Back
by Chris Mosey
An historic meeting of two giants of modern jazz in Sweden. Bengt Hallberg, born 1932, helped to found the idiom via his work with alto saxophonist Arne Domnérus in the 1950s and attracted international attention by recording with such US legends as Clifford Brown and Stan Getz. Leonard Feather praised his “unique light-fingered style." Jan Lundgren, born 1966, gigged with Domnérus and the great Swedish clarinetist Putte Wickman before going up against such visiting American luminaries as ...
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