DAY 1
Stockholm Jazz Festival 2005 has begun. On Tuesday about 9,000 visitors came to listen to some good music played at Skeppsholmen. It was sold out on opening day.

First up was Gugge Hedrenius' Rhythm and blues band, which was very good. This band has an ability to play modern standards as well as older ones. So the variety of styles is well explored in this big band. The singer Marino Valle has a good voice in my opinion. It is fun to listen to this band as one gets good variation. For more listening to this band, one can attend a performance at Jazz in Svaben, which is one of the better jazz festivals to attend. That will take place at the end of August.

Vocalist Jeanette Lindström.

Rigmor Gustafsson has explored the music of Bacharach and David. Singer Dionne Warwick performed the tunes written by them. Gustafsson's new album has been well received by her peers and critics alike. That should not come as a surprise since she is backed up by a wonderful trio led by Jacky Terrason. At the Jazz Festival the group was very good. Terreson's playing is wonderful. There's good interplay between Gustafsson and Teresson, too. The songs get a fresh, new sound, which is a delight for the jazz listener. Gustafsson has said that she has always admired the music of Bacharach and David. Well, it seems as if her time to interpret the music was correctly timed. Her new album is outstanding.

A review of her album will be published at a later date. There will be a tour in Sweden starting in September. Check out her webpage for tour dates:

www.rigmorgustafsson.com

What can one say about vocalist Jeanette Lindström? Well, that her music is inventive and clever! That is a rare trait for jazz singers these days. Most singers stick to the formula of singing standards, which is perfectly fine. But when a singer go on to creating music, without having to rely on the usual format, that is when you really want to listen carefully. Jeanette has the ability to create good music using just vocals, that makes sense to the listener. She also has a rich sense of texture in her lyrics. She gets great inspiration from her travels as well. During her gig at the Jazz Festival, it is obvious to the listener that the band really enjoyed playing together.

Her new album "In the Middle of This Riddle" will be reviewed soon.

I might add that at the Fasching Jazzclub, during the wee hours, Jeanette Lindström and Jacky Terrasson did an amazing interplay of improvisation together. Jeanette clearly enjoys experimentation and is not afraid to show it. It really is her best performance. As in most cases the jam session is always the best way to listen to jazz. Check out Fasching this week after the Jazz Festival.

I am afraid that I am not able to say that much about the band Soul Live. The music
they play is hip hop/soul which is an area that I have very little knowledge of.
Based on what I did listen to, I think the music from this style is often repetitive
and ultimately boring. There is some melody to it, but it is not very inventive.
Personally, I am not into this kind of music, but it seems to have appeal for others.

I could not stay in the same arena when Lauryn Hill performed due to the loud volume of the music, but I can say that the bit I heard seemed to be good. I only wish the organizers would keep the music level down. Not even Robert Wells had this kind of volume. I have a hearing loss, which makes it more difficult to tolerate loud levels.

All in all, I'd give the first day a 3 star rating.

DAY 2
The second day and night of the Stockholm Jazz festival was very interesting.

Drummer Petur "Island" Östlund leads a very good band called "Time". In this band he counts on the talent of Nisse Sandström on the saxophone. A legend on the Swedish scene, to say the least. Ulf Johansson Werre played both the piano and the trobone. Hans Beckenroth, the master of the bass, is also a member of the Östlund band. For the concert, the band chose to play some originals.

The Stockholm Jazz Festival Main Stage.

Two of the tunes played, "Downhill" and "Uphill", were written by Johansson-Werre. Both tunes were uplifting and original. It is a great bebop sound for the ear. This band has a good solid ground that makes the listener feel good inside.

It is nice to see Östlund finally receive a chance to be lead the band. For many years he played as a side man. He has also been a great teacher for many of Sweden's fine drummers who play in the jazz scenes of Sweden.

Pianist Daniel Karlsson has received good acclaim for his talents as a piano player. He
was honored with the "Jazz in Sweden" award earlier this year. He also has been playing as a side man for many years, most notably with the band "OddJob". This is his debut as bandleader. He has put together a great band with some of Sweden's finest jazz musicians, including trumpeter Magnus Broo. The music played in this band consists of bebop blending in with a bit of fusion and free jazz. This makes for interesting interplay between the musicians. The music is well played as well. I think we can look forward to listening to more from this band in the months to come. Get their new CD Pan Pan.

80-year-old Roy Hanes is an exceptional drummer who still keeps good tempo in his
playing. His band consists of fine musicians who are very talented and understand the
ideas behind the jazz idiom. Saxophonist Markus Strickland played very well on a Monk
composition. The audience really paid close attention to that tune. The entire band played very well for this gig. It is clear that this drummer still can play very well and enjoys performing.

The fine guitarist Lee Ritenour played some very good jazz this evening. His band included saxophone player Ernie Watts, who is one of the best saxophonists today. They all played exceptionally well. One of the tunes had a bit of a latin flavor to it. The
improvisation and interplay between the musicians was very smooth as well. He played some new material from his new cd and dvd albums. I would recommend that you buy them both. He has been on the jazz scene for many years and it proves that he has established a passion for playing good jazz on his guitar. A very pleasant gig for this band to say the least.

Pop singer Jonny Lang sings very well for a pop singer. His band had a great rhythm section which helped his performance last night. I thought, however, that the music was a bit stale at times. I think there could have been room for more inventive music. Nonetheless I still enjoyed the music played. He also has some good lyrics that I enjoyed as well. He plays very well for being so young. There is indeed a chance he will expand his music in the future. A nicely played gig.

The biggest surprise of this week's festival will be written soon.

day 3
The third day of the Jazz Festival was very well put together as they had some very good bands playing.

The group Voice is an outstanding jazz band from South Africa. The band plays good bebop and has some great talents. Trumpeter Marcus Wyatt plays his horn with great sound and improvisation. The music is quite original. The group has won several awards in their home country as well. I'll give a review of their album soon.

Beady Belle is an interesting jazz band that has combined jazz, rock, fusion, and electronic sounds into a fine sound in music. The singer, Beate Lech has a good voice and also plays on the electronic keyboards. You have to be attentive while listening to this music as it is a challenge to perceive the blending of electronic music. This is not traditional jazz at all. But the pianist Jörn Dien is an outstanding player who does great improvisation. One can hear influences of bebop here, too. An interesting band!

Sonik Mechatronik Arkestra is a band featuring some of Sweden's best musicians. The band got started just wanting to get together and jam to some music influenced by the funky style that was played by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock during the 1970's. But they do add a personal touch as well, and the results are quite good. This band has some very good sounds. They are quite inventive. Its members include Jonas Kulhammar and Per "Rusträsk" Johansson, both fine saxophone players! I hope this band gets to play in the countryside of Sweden soon. Sonik Mechatronik Arkestra is worth a good listen.

Singer Angelique Kidjo.

Angelique Kidjo is a wonderful singer who just thrilled everyone in the crowd. The band played some world music with some very nice influences from various forms of music, including latin music. Kidjo sings with a great voice, and the band played very well as well. The audience was dancing in the rain, just feeling upbeat about this music. It's just plain fun music to enjoy. It's good feeling music, too.

Timbuktu & Damn! WOW! That's about all you need to say about this hip-hop band. They played and rapped very well. I enjoyed the good beat of the drums and the horn section did a good job, too. The audience really caught on to the words and rhythm of this band It was quite inventive with the lyrics, too. An uplifting experience.

Now I have to tell you the biggest surprise of the week. The jazz club Fasching became the home for the nightly jam sessions that occur after the last gig at the festival area. At 1:30 am on Wednesday morning a 12-year-old boy stepped up to play the drums. Boy! talk about his talents. Two of the band members from Voice stepped up to join him. This was fast bebop jazz here. And the groove of music was way beyond our limits. The young player’s name is Karl Henrik Ousbäck. I can only say that we all were taken aback by his performance and we all wanted him to play more. The twenty minutes he played was just not enough. This young player has a very bright future ahead of him. He's probably the biggest talk among the jazz musicians this week. Word has it he has already been playing with professional musicians.

It might be mentioned that a certain jazz critic from Café Crème played the drums together with the fine singer Viktoria Tolstoy at a jam session last night... ,-)

day 4
Artists Bo Sundström, Göran Kajfes, Christian Walz and Robyn performed at the jazz festival today. Unfortunately I found all of these artists to be uninventive and quite boring to listen to. Even if Göran Kajfes' music is jazz, it still was not great or inventive as it simply is a band wishing to appeal to a wider audience by playing the same basic chords over and over again on the bass. That the musicians did well with improvisation is not something to really take notice since many jazz musicians here in Sweden play just as well. I found all of the artists to be rather similar in style. There wasn't any music that really appealed to me. To be honest, I am not the right critic for this kind of music. I call this music "teeny bopper music".

I think the organizers have attempted to attract a wider audience by booking popular artists. That isn't, of course, any surprise. However, I think the choice of pop artists for this year was not quite lucky. There are other, more interesting artists that I think would have fit the bill better. It is a bad sign when there are no jazz artists in the crowd. There has been a number of sightings of well-known jazz musicians and singers through the week, but none turned up yesterday. They have been saving their ears for Saturday instead.

Christian Walz.

I must admit, though, that there was a good number of people in the crowd. So in that respect, the organizers were right in their choices. But bear in mind that popularity has nothing to do with how good a performer is. Perhaps they were good, but in my opinion the music very tedious and lacking in originality.

Popular music is good in Sweden, but the jazz festival really isn't the right arena for these performers. I think the organizers need to look more into the soul or hip hop genres, as I think these genres better fit the arena of this festival. Placing pop music within this festival doesn't work for jazz lovers. I won't apologize for my harsh critic today. In fact I hope the organizers are reading this review right now.

All this week there has been some great jazz jams at Fasching. Since today (Saturday) is the final day of the festival, it would be an idea to pay the Fasching Jazz Club a visit. The Daniel Tilling Trio will be the house band for tonight. Hopefully there will be a number of good azz performers jamming tonight. The show begins at midnight and runs until four in the morning.

DAY 5
The final day of this year’s Jazz Festival was no doubt the best day of the week. Nearly all the bands today were topnotch and sounded very good to me. I was very happy that there was a variation of different styles today. It was a feast to one’s ears to say the least!

Torbjörn Zetterberg provides us an interesting look at jazz in its modern sound. He was asked to write a composition for another jazz festival in Malmö. The result is an interesting piece that features a combination of be-bop and free jazz. It's a challenge to the listener, but it's a good example of the kind of music that younger musicians are now tending to experiment with these days. The band played very well in my opinion. It's an interesting band to listen to.

The Hungarian band Djabe.

Djabe is a band from Hungary that has a nice combination of fusion, world music and folk music from their country. It really sounded very good to me. I was pleased over the nice blend of different styles combining into one sound. The pianist and trumpeter were both very good at playing the solos, too. And the rhythm section was very good in keeping the beat together as well.

Linda Petterson has been on the jazz scene for some time now. But, in recent years she has established herself as a great singer and does have a nice voice. Her quintet is composed of very good jazz musicians who really know the art of jazz and understand the roots of bebop. I think Linda has established herself as a fine singer; she has done some nice work with her own material, and Anders Persson does a nice job playing the piano. I really enjoyed listening to the rich sound of Ulf Adåker, who plays the trumpet very well. The material chosen was good. Linda does a nice job here, so it should be interesting to see how her music develops in the future. Be sure to listen to her in duo form, too, with pianist Mattias Algotsson, who is a fine pianist.

I wanted to enjoy the music of Peter Cincotti because he started out his set on a great jazz song. But then he started getting dull, playing popular pop songs that sound so ordinary that one wonders why he should choose to waste his time on them. He does play quite nicely when the jazz elements come into play. I hope Cincotti will return to jazz and stay there. He has a nice voice, but I think he should focus more on just playing the piano. Ultimately, the music played wasn’t that great, as he can perform much better than he executes it here.

The Blue House Jazz Orchestra led by musicians Magnus Lindgren and Peter Asplund is an outstanding band that knew how to get the audience's attention. This is one of the best bands to date. I was delighted to listen to some nice arrangements by trumpeter Magnus Broo. His arrangemnets for the big band prove that he has a soft side. The gig included some great compositions by Magnus Lindgren which were not included in the recordings produced a few years ago. After having listened to these pieces, I would
encourage Magnus to consider recording them with this band. There are two great arrangements that have to be mentioned here. The first one being Porgy and Bess' Summertime. This was really one of the big band's best pieces to date and should be recorded right away. A very uplifting sound full of rich riffs. And it's a great tune. The tribute to Monica Zetterlund is another masterpiece delivered by this band. I dare say that this band will never get any competition because that doesn't exist any longer. This band is the best band we will ever listen to.

The Blue House Orchestra will be performing at the Stockholm Concert Hall (Konserthuset) on November 27th. There will be two additional groups performing on the occasion: The Jan Luindgren Trio and Andreas Petterson Band. If you can attend this concert, you are in for a treat! Tickets go on sale on the 29th of August.

Musicians Johnny Griffin, Albert Heath, Toots Thieleman, Mads Vinging, Neils Lan Doky, Didier Lookwood and Lisa Nilsson have all come together to play music in tribute to one of Copenhagen's landmarks in jazz history: the Montmartre. The Montmaytre is a jazz club where the very best jazz legends played. The jazz club then closed down. There is a documentary by Niels Lan Doky to honor this club. The film honors life in Copenhagen as well. The film just recently had its opening night in Copenhagen and is expected to be released here in Sweden and Norway. More information about other release dates will follow.

The music for the film consists of original music by Niels Lan Doky and has its origins in bebop. This recording is quite refreshing to hear. It's very well done, as it features the very best musicians in jazz. Lisa Nilsson sings very well on this recording. People who haven't heard Lisa sing jazz might be taken by surprise. But Lisa grew up with jazz as her father and stepmother are a jazz musician and a vocalist respectively. Lisa does a great job singing, and the timing is just great, too. This recording is really fine and it ought to attract the attention of jazz lovers in months to come. I'd give this a good listen as it should be a hit this year. Buy the cd now!

Mighty Sam McClain simply is the Godfather of blues. He's also the better rapper as he does that at an interesting pace... very slow! The band is very tight. I enjoyed listening to the music a great deal. He got the audience in the right mood, too. Lots of fun listening to him – he is a great blues singer.

Los Van Van is an outstanding latin flavored band that plays great salsa music. The entire band was on their feet ready to dance away. This band brings great rhythm to the music. I enjoyed their performance a great deal. It was fun to see the audience dance to this great music. It really is a shame that this band couldn't be at the Grammy Awards to pick up their prize. This band deserves a chance to perform in the USA.

This year's Jazz Festival has now come to a close. It has been an interesting blending of music. I look forward to next summer. Hopefully there may be some nice new bands to listen to. I had a great time this last week.

Some of the artists’ albums will be reviewed next month.

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