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Tolvan Big Band: Interacting
by Jack Bowers
There's an ample supply of engaging music on Interacting, the fourteenth recording by Sweden's splendid Tolvan Big Band, all of it written and arranged by director and lead alto saxophonist Helge Albin. A shame there isn't more than thirty-two minutes worth. Be that as it may, the music itself is by and large buoyant and swinging, with seamless interplay among the various sections and sharp solos by Albin ("Dancing Shoes," “Lightsome") and his colleagues. Trombonist Peter Dahlgren ...
read moreVivian Buczek: Roots
by Kyle Simpler
Since 2003, Vivian Buczek has established herself as a powerful force in the contemporary jazz scene. Her voice is soulful and powerful. She can be sensitive and emotional on a ballad, but then turn around and sing blues songs as if she's been doing it all her life, which she actually has been. With Roots, she brings the listener into her musical world and offers, what she calls, “the most personal album I've ever made." On Roots, Buczek ...
read moreMagnus Dolerud, Hans Backenroth, and Oscar Johansson Werre: Trio Circle
by Jim Worsley
Tried and true formats have been revisited time and time again over the years. The saxophone trio is amongst that core group. In the right heads and hands, such a trio offers the opportunity for new freedoms, and for inventiveness to blossom, mature, and travel. While Trio Circle's charted arrangements bring symmetry to the project, it is their uncharted methodology that delightfully proves the old adage that “the journey outweighs the destination." Trio Circle consists of tenor saxophonist ...
read moreErik Palmberg: In Between
by Jim Worsley
Not many records reveal themselves in an instant. Yet a thoughtful presence and pensive vibe are apparent from the start of Erik Palmberg's In Between. His second record as a leader follows his successful debut, First Lines (Stockholm Jazz Records, 2018), an earthy display of vintage jazz adorned with modern expressionism. It was a launch point of some caliber that left the door open for growth and experimentation. While said growth seemed likely, it surpasses expectations when it is in ...
read moreFredrik Lindborg: Fredrik Lindborg: A Swedish Portrait
by Jim Worsley
A time capsule is opened carefully, and its contents are respectively honored and revered. This is the purposeful and respectful sensation revealed on Fredrik Lindborg's faithful homage to the music of Swedish baritone sax legend Lars Gullin. While the arrangements are new, and at times brilliant, the creativity and ambitions of Gullin are richly intact. Lindborg's trio, featuring bassist Martin Sjostedt and drummer Daniel Fredriksson, invigorate with educated conversation while flying high on fiery octane. In unison with ...
read moreAnna Greta Siguroardottir - Max Schultz: Brighter
by Chris Mosey
An album of moods, in which light, lilting, melodic passages are contrasted with dissonance, Max Schultz's authorative guitar generally lightens things up while Joakim Milder's saxophone signals a plunge into neurotic introspection. All this tends to drown out Icelandic pianist Anna Greta Siguroardottir's gentle musings on piano. It sounds as if they just met, but in fact Schultz and Siguroardottir first began playing together in 2015 after a stint in Hakan Brostrom's New Places Orchestra. For this ...
read morePetter Bergander Trio: Kierkegaard's Waltz
by Chris Mosey
The honouring in popular song of Sören Kierkegaard, author of “The Sickness Unto Death" and other light works has been a long time coming. To be exact, we've waited since his death in 1855 for this moment. “Heidegger's Boogie" and “The Schopenhauer Rag" must surely follow. The curious thing is that Kierkegaard's Waltz is an album of really quite soothing music which, on the face of it, would seem to bear little resemblance to the philosophical musings of the chap ...
read moreVivian Buczek: A Woman's Voice
by Chris Mosey
An ambitious project from Sweden: vocalist Vivian Buczek joining forces with the Norrbotten Big Band using song to illustrate life from a woman's perspective. Buczek says: “It's about taking the step from a girl to a woman, looking back in time and then to the future, finding my place in the world and daring to go my own way." With this album she celebrates some of her main sources of inspiration, artists who have made a lasting ...
read moreVivian Buczek: Ella Lives
by Chris Mosey
Sweden's Vivian Buczek, fast approaching her 40th birthday, comes across more as a schoolgirl with a crush on her teacher on this, her seventh solo album, which pays tribute to The First Lady Of Song. Ella Fitzgerald--had she not died in 1996--would be 100 this year. “Ella Fitzgerald has always been my greatest inspiration and the main reason that I have become a jazz singer," Buczek explains in the sleeve note. Her father Bruno, who played trombone, ...
read moreSE-Quartet: Going North
by Chris Mosey
This album is dedicated to the refugees who have arrived in Scandinavia in recent years. On the day it was released, April 7 2017, one of those refugees, Rakhmat Akilov, aged 39, drove a hijacked truck into the entrance of the Åhlens department store in the centre of Stockholm, the Swedish capital, killing four people. Akilov, an unstable character with Islamic State sympathies, was upset because his application for a residence permit had been refused and he ...
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