Jazz at Konserthuset

Songwriters’ Guide is a new concert subscription that pays tribute to the top songwriters of history. These major names added musical colour to Broadway and Hollywood, and created the timeless classics of the Great American Songbook. This concert shines the spotlight on Cole Porter, creator of musicals such as Kiss Me, Kate, and hits like I Get a Kick Out of You, What Is This Thing Called Love? and Let's Misbehave. In the glow of jazz, we will be guided through his life with music, history and anecdotes.

Peter Asplund – trumpet player, vocalist, composer – will lead, together with his trio Aspiration with Hans Andersson on bass and Johan Löfcrantz Ramsay on drums. Two guests participate in each portrait concert, and here we will meet singer Veronica Mortensen, acclaimed for her vocal elegance and charismatic stage presence, and pianist Claes Crona, one of Sweden’s most renowned jazz musicians.

Cole Porter was born in 1891 in the city of Peru, Indiana, and died in 1964 in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California. Thanks to a wealthy relative, he was able to study law and music at Harvard. After joining the French army during World War I, he spent the 1920s in Paris. In 1930 he moved back to the US, to New York, but he was always a Parisian at heart.

The name 4 Wheel Drive easily sparks associations with a polished car magazine. But this isn’t about cars. Behind the vehicular-inspired name are instead trombone player Nils Landgren, pianist Michael Wollny, bassist Lars Danielsson and percussionist Wolfgang Haffner. Together, this newly formed Swedish-German, and above all democratic jazz supergroup presents music that defies labels and genre descriptions.

“We’re all here on equal terms, hence the name,” says founder Nils Landgren. “Just like a four-wheel-drive car, we’re all driving. You might say that we’re all doing we want to do, but we’re also all doing what everyone else wants.”

Individually, each member is an internationally recognised improvisational musician with the whole world as a platform. Here they share the task of offering personalised interpretations of both well-known and less familiar music. This magnificent music has space for intimate interplays and the whims of the moment, without ever losing respect for the origins and history of each song.

Meet this new quartet at the final concert of their first, but certainly not their last European tour.

Spring’s Blue House Jazz subscription
Reserve spring’s jazz subscription. Three concerts for SEK 920. 
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