Jazz Articles

Stockholm Jazz Orchestra: Stockholm Jazz Orchestra plays Stockholm Jazz Orchestra

by Chris Mosey
April 10, 2008

The Stockholm Jazz Orchestra is a world class outfit. Led by veteran trumpet player Fredrik Noren and featuring arrangements by Chicago pianist Jim McNeely, its members come from all over Sweden and beyond in a fascinating meeting of generations. Consider, if you will, the trumpet section where grey-haired, moustachioed Gustavo Bergalli, born 1940 in Buenos Aires (ex-Michel Legrand and Gato Barbieri), sits alongside Karl Olandersson, born 1978, who with his pin-up boy looks and occasional vocals, reminds you of a ...

Lars Sjosten: Early

by Jack Bowers
January 15, 2008

In 1972, pianist Lars Sjösten was invited by STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society) to record an album under his name, comprised entirely of Swedish songs. The vinyl LP, released that year as Gutår, encompasses the first ten tracks on Early. The others, no doubt appended in part to increase the CD's playing time, were recorded two years earlier as part of another album, Svenskblandning, with the exception of track eleven, a three-part suite entitled “De Röda Bilarna (The Red ...

Bengt Hallberg: All-Star Sessions 1953 / 54

by Jack Bowers
January 13, 2008

By 1953-54, when these sessions were recorded in Stockholm, pianist Bengt Hallberg had been a resplendent star on the Swedish jazz scene for more than half a dozen years. Unremarkable, one might surmise, until he learns that Hallberg turned twenty-two on September 13, 1954, by which time he had already won a nationwide competition for young composers and recorded with such American stars as saxophonist Stan Getz and trumpeter Clifford Brown.

Hallberg was a fifteen-year-old high ...

Lars Gullin: Summertime: Vol. 9, 1954-56

by Jack Bowers
February 11, 2007

Anyone who has been paying attention should be well aware of my stance toward the late Swedish saxophonist Lars Gullin. In reviewing Volume 8 of Dragon's loosely chronological multi-disc survey of Gullin's music, I wrote that he was “a giant among baritone saxophonists, a “truly original voice and “one of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived. No ambiguity there, and Volume 9, covering the years 1954-56, explicitly reinforces that opinion.

The album encompasses eight songs recorded in June '54 ...

Lars Gullin: Danny's Dream: Volume 8, 1953-55

by Jack Bowers
March 4, 2006

Dragon Records continues its quasi-chronological survey of music by the great Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin with Volume 8, scanning the years 1953-55. (Volume 2, Modern Sounds, is devoted entirely to recordings made in 1953, while Volumes 7 and 3 review the years 1951-53 and 1954-55, respectively.) Unlike previous volumes, which have included guest appearances by such well-known American jazz artists as Chet Baker, Zoot Sims, Lee Konitz, James Moody and Stan Getz along with Swedish stars Arne Domnérus, Rolf ...

Stockholm Jazz Orchestra: Sailing

by Jack Bowers
August 9, 2005

This is the second volume by the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra of compositions and arrangements by its talented pianist, Göran Strandberg, following 2000's Lakes (Dragon). As on that earlier album, much of the music is Strandberg's, with half a dozen of his original works complementing inventive arrangements of Harold Arlen's “Come Rain or Come Shine, Jerome Kern's “Yesterdays, Johnny Mandel's “The Shadow of Your Smile and Carla Bley's “Flags.

Strandberg's fertile imagination is conspicuous at the outset with an elliptical approach ...

The Per Henrik Wallin Trio, 1986-87: Where Is Spring

by Jack Bowers
October 18, 2004

Whatever else one thinks of Swedish pianist Per Henrik Wallin, one thing must be conceded--he has assuredly developed a style of his own, which is quite evident on this album recorded by his trio nearly two decades ago. Little wonder that he has been described in the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD as “a European original."

Stylistically, Wallin is a modernist who hasn't forsaken the roots of jazz, and there are echoes in his playing of everyone from Art ...

H: Do You Remember?

by Rob Cline
May 18, 2004

The first thing you notice about Do You Remember?, the new disc by the Håkan Broström Quartet, is how exceedingly pleasant it is to listen to. Indeed, Brostrom's bright, inviting tone, used in service of hook after hook after hook, calls to mind Cannonball Adderley. Like Adderley, Broström is an alto saxophonist who knows how to grab and hold the listener's attention with music that is simultaneously pleasing and multifaceted. Casual listeners and jazz aficionados alike will find treasures on ...

Ake Johansson: Trio 77

by Craig W. Hurst
March 23, 2004

Trio 77 is a CD release of a 1977 recording made for Swedish Radio by pianist Ake Johansson. Johansson, who emerged on the Swedish jazz scene while barely out of his teens in the late 1950's, has performed and recorded with many great jazz artists, having held the distinction of being the accompanist for many American players when they visited Sweden. Johansson also has recorded on the Dragon label with Chet Baker and Toots Thielemans. Trio 77 presents a retrospective ...

The Harry Arnold Big Band: 1964/65, Vols. 1 and 2

by Jack Bowers
March 2, 2004

Big bands weren’t exactly on an upward curve—in Sweden or anywhere else—when Harry Arnold formed the Swedish Radio Studio Orchestra in 1956. Nevertheless, the band had a brief but highly successful run, appearing regularly on radio and even recording an album in the U.S. before Arnold left in 1965 to pursue other interests and the ensemble was gradually transformed into the smaller Swedish Radio Jazz Group.

The selections on this two-disc set were taped for radio broadcast but never released ...