Jazzy Stuff
Sorry to those of you who saw the faulty draft posted here, but now I've hopefully fixed things up. There's been a bit of a jazz theme over the last couple of weeks: I went and saw Peter Erskine, drummer with Weather Report + heaps of other stuff, play with the Norbotten Big Band, and then saw a couple of great gigs at the Umeå Jazz Festival.
I'm also playing in Luhrarne, the university Big Band, which I saw play last year and decided not to join because it wasn't as good as the Monash Band (at least in its heyday) and played some of exactly the same arrangements as we did over the last 11 years. I wanted a fresh challenge.
So now, a year later and I am in the band... on drumkit. I have only mucked around with a kit for a couple of months before I came to Sweden, and thought I could just have a bit of fun and keep time for them playing ting-ting-ta-ting until they found someone better. But I'm still there, and faced with a much bigger challenge than I thought - lots of great but complicated funk tunes and less of the ting-ting-a-ting swing that I thought I would be good at. Sure, after years of Japanese drumming, my hands do reasonably well on their own, when I have to add my feet into the mix lots of things go haywire. And in two weeks I will play in front of people for the first time at a bands festival, which could be a bit embarrassing. But should be fun.
So here are a couple of jazzy things from Sweden, starting with some electro+jazz stuff, nothing amazing but good for chilling to.
Koop - Whenever there is you
- Whenever there is you
This comes via their website, but was a find from SwedesPlease, where a clip to Come To Me can be found here.
Monica Zetterlund
Going back in time now to some cool jazz from the 60's, and Sweden's biggest star Monica Zetterlund. She got some worldwide fame after recording a couple of songs with pianist Bill Evans on his classic ablum Waltz for Debby. Here is a clip of them working together. The song starts after 1 minute. Note the cigarette; she died rather tragically a few years ago smoking in bed - it caught fire and due to leg problems couldn't escape.
A song in English: Lucky to Be Me
She actually sang in the Eurovision song contest in 1963, with a not unreasonable jazz ballad (you can find it), but famously got 0 points.
E.S.T-live
Cool, chill jazz, from current big names the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (E.S.T)
Lisa Ekdahl - It Had to be You
She has a slightly odd voice, and is more famous for pop stuff in the 90's. But here is a pretty good version of the classic standard.
A brief bit of her live doing some of her folky pop stuff.
Nils Landgren - Trombone legend
The biggest name in jazz tromboning here. Does lots of funky stuff, has a definite Bill Watrous influence, and apparently sings alot - including in musicals written by the ABBA guys like Chess. Not alot around to show you on youtube, but this piece of funk with a great solo that starts at around 1:45
And here with Pat Metheny - singing and playing.
Some samples are meant to be up on his website, but aren't working. At least there is the background music.
And to cap of this non-pop posting, it would be impossible not to mention Christian Lindberg, the world's premier orchestral trombonist, and possibly the "greatest living brassplayer". It is hard to really encapsulate how amazingly talented he is. He isn't afraid to go out on the edge and do contemporary stuff either - such as the Motorcycle concerto where he spins round and round to get the sound right. Here is a clip from a movie called BrassBones - a Western instrumental shootout. I'm linking to another blog, where I seemed to have more luck playing the trailer. Enjoy.
Brassbones - the movie
Also, check out the homepage here.
Other clips:
Csardas - the traditional Hungarian folk dance, played high with amazing tone and tongueing and with 'humour'. (And it is much harder to do than it looks).
Motorbike odyssey (live) Stick with it - Kilt spinning happens at around 4mins!
Concert Highlights
IF you want more, go to his website for more and click on the videos, which have much better sound, even for the motorbike odyssey.
I'm also playing in Luhrarne, the university Big Band, which I saw play last year and decided not to join because it wasn't as good as the Monash Band (at least in its heyday) and played some of exactly the same arrangements as we did over the last 11 years. I wanted a fresh challenge.
So now, a year later and I am in the band... on drumkit. I have only mucked around with a kit for a couple of months before I came to Sweden, and thought I could just have a bit of fun and keep time for them playing ting-ting-ta-ting until they found someone better. But I'm still there, and faced with a much bigger challenge than I thought - lots of great but complicated funk tunes and less of the ting-ting-a-ting swing that I thought I would be good at. Sure, after years of Japanese drumming, my hands do reasonably well on their own, when I have to add my feet into the mix lots of things go haywire. And in two weeks I will play in front of people for the first time at a bands festival, which could be a bit embarrassing. But should be fun.
So here are a couple of jazzy things from Sweden, starting with some electro+jazz stuff, nothing amazing but good for chilling to.
Koop - Whenever there is you
- Whenever there is you
This comes via their website, but was a find from SwedesPlease, where a clip to Come To Me can be found here.
Monica Zetterlund
Going back in time now to some cool jazz from the 60's, and Sweden's biggest star Monica Zetterlund. She got some worldwide fame after recording a couple of songs with pianist Bill Evans on his classic ablum Waltz for Debby. Here is a clip of them working together. The song starts after 1 minute. Note the cigarette; she died rather tragically a few years ago smoking in bed - it caught fire and due to leg problems couldn't escape.
A song in English: Lucky to Be Me
She actually sang in the Eurovision song contest in 1963, with a not unreasonable jazz ballad (you can find it), but famously got 0 points.
E.S.T-live
Cool, chill jazz, from current big names the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (E.S.T)
Lisa Ekdahl - It Had to be You
She has a slightly odd voice, and is more famous for pop stuff in the 90's. But here is a pretty good version of the classic standard.
A brief bit of her live doing some of her folky pop stuff.
Nils Landgren - Trombone legend
The biggest name in jazz tromboning here. Does lots of funky stuff, has a definite Bill Watrous influence, and apparently sings alot - including in musicals written by the ABBA guys like Chess. Not alot around to show you on youtube, but this piece of funk with a great solo that starts at around 1:45
And here with Pat Metheny - singing and playing.
Some samples are meant to be up on his website, but aren't working. At least there is the background music.
And to cap of this non-pop posting, it would be impossible not to mention Christian Lindberg, the world's premier orchestral trombonist, and possibly the "greatest living brassplayer". It is hard to really encapsulate how amazingly talented he is. He isn't afraid to go out on the edge and do contemporary stuff either - such as the Motorcycle concerto where he spins round and round to get the sound right. Here is a clip from a movie called BrassBones - a Western instrumental shootout. I'm linking to another blog, where I seemed to have more luck playing the trailer. Enjoy.
Brassbones - the movie
Also, check out the homepage here.
Other clips:
Csardas - the traditional Hungarian folk dance, played high with amazing tone and tongueing and with 'humour'. (And it is much harder to do than it looks).
Motorbike odyssey (live) Stick with it - Kilt spinning happens at around 4mins!
Concert Highlights
IF you want more, go to his website for more and click on the videos, which have much better sound, even for the motorbike odyssey.
posted by Mark Terner at
12:53 AM
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