'Swedish Cool and Modern Jazz: 1949-1959'

A new four-CD box from Fresh Sound highlights the cool, contrapuntal sound of this country's extraordinary jazz scene in the 1950s

Sweden’s love affair with American jazz began in the 1920s, but Swedish jazz’s glory years were in the 1950s. Charlie Parker toured there in 1950, Quincy Jones launched his career there early in the decade and Stan Getz toured there extensively using local musicians. Now, Fresh Sound has issued a four-CD set of Swedish jazz during the music’s golden years there—Swedish Cool and Modern Jazz: 1949-1959. It’s a remarkable set and shrewdly curated.

How was Sweden exposed to American jazz so early? Back in the 1920s, Brunswick, OKeh and Plaza Music distributed jazz 78s there through local partnerships and subsidiary labels. Some companies, such as OKeh, also produced special recordings that they knew would appeal to the Swedish market.

The first major jazz band to tour in Sweden was Louis Armstrong’s Hot Harlem Band in 1933. Duke Ellington’s band was there in 1939 and left a deep impact on Swedish musicians. The upbeat music was in stark contrast with the more moody and brooding Scandinavian folk and classical records available.

In the late 1940s, several Swedish jazz musicians relocated to the U.S. Among them were Stan Hasselgård, who played and performed with Benny Goodman in a two-clarinet septet, and trumpeter Rolf Ericson, who played with Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman. Hasselgård was there to help Goodman along in his bebop education.

Artists who toured in Sweden fell in love with the country and the kindness of its people, dedicating songs to the nation. The list includes Duke Ellington’s Serenade to Sweden, Barney Kessel’s Swedish Pastry, Charlie Shavers’ Swedish Schnapps and Quincy Jones’s Stockholm Sweetnin’ and Dear Old Stockholm.

The early tracks on this box have a bebop feel. Artists such as Arne Domnerus’s Favourite Five and his Domnerus Sextet followed in the tradition of the bop records being released at the time and are solid. The music begins to cool down quickly with the Rolf Ericson Octet’s Miles Away, which had the Miles Davis Nonet recordings in mind.

The Gösta Theselius Orchestra and Kenneth Fagerlund Quintet have a distinctly cool jazz feel and are a delightful surprise. Arne Domnerus’s Four Brothers’ emulates Woody Herman’s Four Brothers arrangements.

Baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin, one of Sweden’s best-known jazz musicians, appears in multiple spots along the box’s timelines and all of his tracks are exceptional. He introduced a West Coast jazz flavor with his sound and recordings, and other Swedish jazz musicians followed suit. These include the Rolf Blomquist Sextet. And the Carl-Henrik Norin Septet delivers a Shorty Rogers sound on Shortly.

There’s also plenty of counterpoint, such as Love Is Here to Stay by the Eje Thelin Quintet and Curly Curt by Rolf Billberg. By the last track, Brewin’, by the Gosta Theselius All Stars, Sweden has established itself as a nation of jazz-loving people with musicians who were every bit as capable as anyone in the U.S. at the time.

I can’t recall a box that is this satisfying, from start to finish. It’s also a revelation. While there have been plenty of Swedish jazz compilations, this is the first to identify a particular sound and harvest artists who expressed it.

There isn’t a dud among the 92 tracks. Most have a lively West Coast American feel that sounds like they could have been recorded in Hollywood for Contemporary, Pacific Jazz, Trend, Tampa or Discovery. The Swedes were that exceptional.

You can buy Swedish Cool and Modern Jazz: 1949-1959 (Fresh Sound) here.

Here’s Miles Away by the Rolf Ericson Octet…

Here’s Anytime for You by Arne Domnerus’s Four Brothers…

And here’s Portrait by the Bengt Hallberg Quartet…