Jan Johansson (musician)

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Jan Johansson

Jan Johansson (born September 16, 1931 in Söderhamn , Sweden ; † November 9, 1968 in Sollentuna , Sweden) was a Swedish pianist and jazz musician .

Live and act

Johansson started playing the piano in 1942 . At the beginning of the fifties he began at the Chalmers University of Electrical Engineering to study, but broke his Studies starting to become quite the music to devote. He played in the bands of Kenneth Fagerlund and Gunnar Johnson. From 1958 to 1960 he initially accompanied Stan Getz with his band on a Scandinavian tour before joining other American jazz stars in Copenhagen with Oscar Pettiford in the house band of the Jazzhus Montmartre . Johansson was the first European member in Jazz at the Philharmonic . In 1961 he moved to Stockholm. In the sixties he created timeless jazz versions of Swedish and Russian folk songs, e.g. B. the album Jazz på svenska ("Jazz in Swedish") from 1963, which sold over a million times. According to Ralf Dombrowski , his style was exemplary for many later Scandinavian jazz musicians and shaped “aesthetically sound up to the present day the idea of ​​Scandinavian jazz”. In 1967 he was a member of the Arne Domnérus sextet at the Tallinn Jazz Festival .

He also worked with Astrid Lindgren . His most famous piece is Hey, Pippi Longstocking . Here he worked closely with his friend, the bassist Georg Riedel , who continued her work on the Astrid Lindgren television films after his death.

In 1957 he married Else Bergström and had two sons, Anders and Jens , who are also musicians.

Jan Johansson died in a car accident with a bus in 1968. He is buried on Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm. Many of his albums and recordings have been re-released by his two sons on their label Heptagon.

Rolling Stone magazine selected his album Jazz på svenska (1964) with jazz interpretations of Swedish folk songs in 2013 in its list The 100 best jazz albums at number 57.

Discographic notes

  • 8Bitar Johansson / Inner Trio (Heptagon, 1961–1962)
  • Jan Johansson / Svend Asmussen Jazz på ungerska / In Pleno (Heptagon, 1964)
  • In Hamburg with Georg Riedel ( ACT Music , 1966, with Rune Gustaffson , ed. 2011)
  • The corta egress (Heptagon, 1968)
  • Folkvisor: Jazz på svenska / Jazz på ryska , Heptagon HECD-000 (recordings from 1962/63/64 and 1967)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Basis Diskothek Jazz, Reclam, p. 123
  2. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Johansson, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish jazz pianist
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Söderhamn , Sweden
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1968
Place of death Sollentuna , Sweden