Two early sixties LPs of inventive piano trio jazz, now available on one CD. These sparkling recordings were praised by the critics and the public alike. This is fundamentally a bebop/jazz combo album, but there is a great deal of creativity at work; this is quirky stuff. Great jazz by a man who is popularly considered the formost Swedish jazz musician.
Two CD set containing recordings from two of Sweden's most respected musicians. More than four decades since his passing, composer, arranger and musician Jan Johansson remains a monumental figure on the Swedish music and cultural scene. a gifted pianist, his detailed, crystal clear style is instantly recognizable. There is melancholic quality in Johansson's best work that is at once profoundly joyful. It's a marvelous sound. a truly singular musical voice that is still being celebrated. His masterpiece, JAZZ PA SVENSKA (Jazz in Swedish), features the most exquisite jazz arrangements of traditional folk tunes and is by some distance the best-selling Swedish jazz record of all time…
Jan gives these nice tunes a real bluesy treatment and gets a rich variety of sounds from his piano. All the musicians combine to create various moods from bright lively swing to sleepy and soulful. There is a great sense of relaxed enjoyment in these performances. Anyone who likes jazz and blues piano music will find plenty to enjoy here. The sound is excellent as usual. ~ CDBaby
Besides some CDs and LPs produced in Sweden and Japan, our own master pianist Jan Lundgren has recorded sixteen albums – nine of them under his own name – on the superb and very ambitious Spanish Fresh Sound label, today distributed all over the world. All but one were produced in Los Angeles by the legendary Dick Bank. The exception, Stockholm Get-Together from 1994, was produced by Jan himself. Lundgren retrospective Mr. Bank has now put together an excellent and varied Lundgren compilation. He has chosen twelve selections from ten of his own Fresh Sound productions, recorded between 1995 and 2003, and he presents them chronologically. He lets us listen to Jan entirely on his own, with his American trios and together with jazz celebrities like Bill Perkins, Conte Candoli, Herb Geller…