Jazz Articles about Rolf Ericson

About Rolf Ericson

Album Review

Duke Ellington: Copenhagen 1964

Read "Copenhagen 1964" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
March 3, 2026

All Duke Ellington concerts offered music of substance. Audiences listened patiently through the medleys and Tony Watkins' vocals. Some performances, however, stood apart because they contained material that was fresh--music not yet worn thin by repetition, where both the thinking and playing could still surprise. Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and the orchestra toured Asia (the “Far East") in 1963. Rather than immediately writing new compositions, they deliberately allowed the impressions of the journey to settle, preferring that the process ...

202

Album Review

Rolf Ericson with the Metropole Orchestra: Beautiful Love

by Jack Bowers
February 1, 1999

Sweden, which has produced an exceedingly large number of world–class Jazz musicians for a country its size, was home to one of the finest of them all, trumpeter Rolf Ericson, whose long and varied career ended with his passing in June 1997. Ericson, an impassioned bop–based improviser with a crystalline tone and irreprovable technique, performed with a veritable who’s who of Jazz greats in Sweden and abroad, listing on his extensive resumé such well–known names as Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, ...

558

Album Review

Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Read "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" reviewed by Robert Spencer

by Robert Spencer
June 1, 1997

Some Mingus albums are like a tremendous three-ring circus. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be struck with awe and delight. The music is absorbing, intense, harrowing, beautiful. Drop everything and run to the show, and don't expect to get anything else done at the same time: this is about as far from background music as it gets. A great Mingus album is a totally involving experience. This is especially true of one of the only jazz albums to have liner ...