Jazz at Konserthuset

Gustav Lundgren – French Connection

Sweden’s leading interpreter of Django Reinhardt is back at Konserthuset Stockholm.

It is as if the irresistible music of Django Reinhardt runs through the veins of guitarist Gustav Lundgren. Now he is back at Konserthuset Stockholm with four French super musicians, specialists in Django’s melancholy melodies and quickly improvised runs. This evening of Django Reinhardt will simultaneously observe the birthday of the legend. He was born on 23 January 1910.

Gustav Lundgren is currently one of Sweden’s most prominent jazz guitarists. He has recorded over 60 albums as a backup musician and 22 as a frontman. Over the years, he has collaborated with musicians such as Jimmy Rosenberg, Doug Weiss, Jorge Rossy, Bill McHenry and Lelo Nika, as well as Swedish House Mafia, Kleerup, Miriam Bryant, Petra Marklund, Bo Sundström and Anne Sofie von Otter.

Guitarist Antoine Boyer from Paris studied under legendary figures such as Mandino Reinhardt and Francis-Alfred Moerman. He has recorded five albums as a band leader and has won multiple international classical guitar competitions. Now he tours the world as a band leader and soloist.

In the last decade, Romain Vuillemin has established himself as a strong name in the gypsy jazz world. He collaborates with acclaimed bands such as the Umlaut Big Band and Collectif Paris Swing. He also leads his own tribute band to Django Reinhardt: Romain Vuillemin Quartet.

Edouard Pennes is a well-known guitarist and bassist on the international gypsy jazz scene. He plays clubs and festivals all over the world and often shares the stage with gypsy jazz musicians such as Adrien Moignard, Sébastien Giniaux, Tchavolo Schmitt and many more.

Maryll Zeinab Abbas is a young French accordion player who is as comfortable in traditional French musette as in jazz and world music. In addition to her own projects, such as the Maryll Abbas Trio and Duo Abbas Thézé, she regularly appears in jazz contexts with Patrice Caratini and Sébastien Giniaux, and with the Cape Verdean singer Mariana Ramos. She also participates in many performances at theatres in Paris.

Welcome to a jazzy journey through time and space with Kustbandet, a unique institution in the Swedish music scene that has maintained its style throughout the years. With an unceasing interest in the origins of jazz, the orchestra has also achieved major international successes under its motto “From Ragtime to Swing”.

“I wanna hear Kooostbandet! That’s the kind of music I grew up with,” explained legendary trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie to a Swedish jazz journalist before one of his tours of Sweden in the 1970s.

Dizzy and Kustbandet shared role models, and the orchestra established itself as one of the leading performers of the swinging and entertaining Harlem jazz style, which emerged in the era of New York’s swing ballrooms and Chicago’s prohibitionist speakeasies.

Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie are the most recognizable role models, but Kustbandet has also featured music by other trendsetters, such as Fletcher Henderson, Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman and Benny Carter.

Sometimes Kustbandet begins from the original arrangement found in American archives and sometimes they make transcriptions and reinterpretations from early recordings. Sometimes the band’s skilled arrangers make their own arrangements – always with just the right sense of style. 

Kustbandet has performed in over 20 countries, including at Nobel parties, countless festivals, concerts, cruises, jazz clubs, public celebrations, radio and TV shows – anywhere that audiences want to have a good time with music. We can look forward to a wonderful concert sprinkled with both humour and surprises. ”From Ragtime to Swing”.

An entire world is reflected in Jan Lundgren’s three concerts under the collective title Kind of Jazz. After last year’s success, this is the second edition of Kind of Jazz, with brand new creative encounters. “Genres shouldn’t die in established forms. Jazz can include so much and music should always evolve,” says Jan Lundgren. He is one of our foremost musicians and through some 50 albums and tons of projects and collaborations, he has demonstrated his ability to embrace tradition with simultaneous self-renewal.

The fruitful collaboration with Italian trumpet player Paolo Fresu and French accordionist Richard Galliano began in 2005, and the first Mare Nostrum record was released two years later. The trio is now releasing Mare Nostrum III. Their repertoire includes originals, to which all three members contribute equally. Their three different musical backgrounds and individual styles merge in this shared mare nostrum – our sea. “We have the same philosophy and unite in a shared understanding,” emphasises Jan Lundgren. “This collaboration has strengthened my understanding that what we call jazz can include so much.”

The masterful accordion and bandoneon player Richard Galliano is deeply rooted in the French music tradition and naturally, the instrument gives him special contact with the vernacular of Astor Piazzolla. Galliano is also a boundless musician who has moved freely across the lines of all genres in many celebrated collaborations since the mid-1970s. Paolo Fresu, born in Sardinia, has developed a deeply personal approach to playing the trumpet and flugelhorn. He leads several Italian bands and has also composed music for theatre, television and film.

Svante Henryson and Sigurd Hole are masters of their instruments: the cello and double bass. They do not permit musical genres to limit them. With their versatile backgrounds, they create unique musical universes with improvisation and melodic themes serving as a common thread. The solo format also gives them space to truly explore the rich sounds of their instruments, which they are both known for doing exquisitely.

Sigurd Hole is one of Norway’s most coveted musicians and in recent decades, he has participated in more than 40 recordings and appeared at Cadogan Hall in London, Lincoln Center in New York, Malmö Live and Wellington Opera House. In 2018 he released the solo album Elvesang, which garnered radiant reviews worldwide. The New York Times said it best: “an atmospheric solo bass recording.” LIRA magazine’s reviewer put it poetically instead: “When the forest dance is over and the echoes of the fairies’ song have faded, I can say that this adventurous journey was well worth all the hardships…” Sigurd Hole’s new solo album Lys / Mørke will be released in February 2020, in conjunction with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Svante Henryson’s unique style is pioneering in sound, technique, and above all, in terms of genre. At solo concerts, he often plays themes and improvisations influenced by Indian and western classical music, as well as jazz and rock.

Svante is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and artistic director of the Umeå Chamber Music Festival. In 2014 he received Radio Sweden’s Jazzkatten (“Jazz Cat”) – Musician of the Year, and in 2015 he won the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize. He is also an award-winning composer and has written orchestral pieces, chamber music and pieces for choir.