Svenska Folkjazzkvartetten
The Swedish Folk Jazz Quartet plays Swedish violin music in a jazz quartet.
The raw, melancholic, swinging and beautiful from both jazz and Swedish folk music merge into an outstanding and powerful unity.
The tonal language of folk music colors the improvisations, and improvisation brings life to the song playing and the parts.
The inspiration from John Coltrane and Albert Ayler as well as Gössa Anders and Hjort Anders shines through. Colored by the quartet’s own voices, history and tonal language, the music is put in a new light. The Swedish Folk Jazz Quartet’s idea of combining jazz and folk music may be old, and has many Swedish jazz musicians as predecessors. But the music has rarely been heard in this way.
Isak and Jonas have played Swedish folk music together on clarinet and saxophone for a long time. They have searched through old recordings and met many older fiddlers to learn the tradition and find other ways to play these songs. Jonas grew up with folk music in the home and Isak is a strong figure on the improvisational music scene in Stockholm. They are both now as firmly established in jazz as in folk music.
Together with Anton Jonsson and Vilhelm Bromander, who both have backgrounds in jazz and free improvised music, they have developed a deeply communicative interaction and personal way of approaching this music, with great respect for the history and richness of the different traditions.
There is an enormous energy in the music that moves between the deepest heartfelt sadness, the happiest dance music and the hardest free jazz.
Lineup:
Jonas Liljeberg - träblås
Isak Hedtjärn - träblås
Vilhelm Bromander - kontrabas
Anton Jonsson - trummor