1960s Jazz and Scandinavian Song Tradition with Energy, Swing and Humor

Johannes Gammelgaard is a Danish saxophonist and composer based in Stockholm, where he leads his own quartet. For this concert, he has handpicked three prominent musicians from the Scandinavian jazz scene to perform tracks from the quartet's debut album I Venners Lag (Jaeger Community Music, 2021) as well as new music written for the occasion. They have invited Finnish saxophone icon Mikko Innanen, Gammelgaard's former teacher at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and a longtime personal role model, as a special guest. As if that wasn't enough, the Swedish multi-instrumentalist Gustaf Ljunggren, who is this year's artist in residence at Aarhus Jazz Festival, will also be performing.

The music sounds like a mix of 1960s jazz and Scandinavian song traditions delivered with lots of energy, swing, and humor. Occasionally, the musicians veer off into more freely improvised passages, and all in all, the music contains a wide spectrum of emotions from childlike joy to gloomy melancholy.

Mikko Innanen is a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader from Finland. He is a multifaceted and open-minded musician who thrives in settings that span the past, present, and future of jazz, including in freely improvised solos, duos, or trios, small and large ensembles playing his own compositions, or as a sideman covering the music of others.

Gustaf Ljunggren is a Swedish multi-instrumentalist and composer. He performs as a solo artist, in a duo with Emil de Waal, and works as a sideman, producer, and arranger with artists from different corners of the musical world.

The concert is part of Aarhus Jazz Festival's artist residency 2024, where musicians Emil de Waal and Gustaf Ljunggren can be experienced in many different musical contexts as guest artists at the festival.

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