En hyllning till Georg Riedel – Tonerna som lever

When the jazz bassist, composer and arranger Georg Riedel died on February 25 this year, aged 90, the pen fell silent for one of Swedish music’s most versatile composers. This evening Stockholm Jazz Festival welcomes you to a tribute to Georg Riedel. Together with presenter Nils Landgren (The Radiojazz Group) and pianist and band leader Carl Bagge as well as Sweden’s jazz elite of musicians and vocalists such as Nicolai Dunger and Sarah Riedel we offer you a night to remember!
Georg Riedel composed songs for Astrid Lindgren’s films, innovative jazz for the Radiojazz Group as well as his own duos, trios and quartets. He has written choral works, opera, film, ballet and church music. He was one of those who brought Swedish folk music into jazz. With the album Jazz in Swedish, he and Jan Johansson were responsible for Swedish jazz’s best-selling record.
Georg is gone but his music lives on. In the songs and compositions, in all the younger musicians who collaborated with him and who play his music and his arrangements in everyday life as well as in music halls. Georg Riedel never settled down and rested on his laurels, he continued to write new music for his own and others’ projects, constantly collaborating with new generations of jazz musicians.
To pay tribute to this giant, the Stockholm Jazz Festival invites you to an evening in the Concert Hall. The night offers an assortment of Georg’s finest work, performed by carefully handpicked artists, many of whom have collaborated with Georg over the past 20 years.
Among other acts, we will listen to Jonas Kullhammar, Nils Berg, Emil Strandberg, Per Ruskträsk Johansson, Mats Äkellint, Fredrik Lindborg and Agnes Darelid.
The show will be a retrospective of Riedel’s work and connect the golden years of the 1950s with his contemporary jazz of the 2020s. It will include compositions for the Radiojazz Group, with who Georg collaborated as late as autumn 2023, as well as performances from his very last major work Yiddishland. And off course no retrospective of Riedel’s would be complete without the beloved songs that Georg wrote for Astrid Lindgren’s films.
”Georg Riedel’s work is almost insurmountable and his importance to Swedish jazz and to generations of young and old listeners is immeasurable. Riedel was a giant, the void left by him is great, but the music remains and lives today and forever. Therefore, it feels extra special to inaugurate this year’s jazz festival with a tribute evening dedicated to him”, says Eric Birath, CEO of the Stockholm Jazz Festival.

Promoter: Stockholm Jazz Festival

Lineup:
Sarah Riedel - vocals,
Channa Riedel - vocals,
Nicolai Dunger - vocals,
Carl Bagge - conductor and piano,
Johan Graden - piano
Patrik Skogh - trumpet,
Nils Janson - trumpet,
Tobias Wiklund - trumpet,
Emil Strandberg - trumpet,
Agnes Darelid - trombone,
Staffan Findin - trombone,
Mats Äkellint - trombone,
Tilde Schweitzer - trombone,
Per "Ruskträsk" Johansson - saxophone,
Fredrik Ljungkvist - saxophone,
Nils Berg - saxophone,
Jonas Kullhammar - saxophone,
Fredrik Lindborg - saxophone,
Viktor Skokic - bass,
Hans Backenroth - bass,
Konrad Agnas - drums,
Mats Bergström - guitar,
Lisa Långbacka - accordeon