One of the finest jazz pianists in the world is barely known in the United States. His many CDs are on Japanese, Spanish and Scandinavian labels that sometimes show up in US stores despite their limited distribution in this country. Jan Lundgren visits the US infrequently, usually to record for foreign companies. His most recent tour was last month’s series of concerts in Japanese cities. When I mention Lundgren to musicians and canny jazz listeners who keep up with developments in music, I often get blank looks. After I persuade them to seek out Lundgren’s work, they respond with enthusiasm.
Jan Lundgren
My first encounter with Lundgren’s playing was in the mid-1990s when I was preparing to write notes for Bill Perkins’ Perk Plays Prez. Perkins and producer Dick Bank wanted a pianist who could play Count Basie and Teddy Wilson to Perkins’ tenor saxophone evocation of Lester Young–without apeing Basie or Wilson. Bank brought in Lundgren. The young pianist more than filled the bill. He had already earned the enthusiasm of Lou Levy, always tough in his evaluations of other pianists, and of another exacting old pro, alto saxophonist Herb Geller. Bank recruited Lundgren for Geller’s You’re Looking at Me.
Some of Lundgren’s Fresh Sound (Spain) and Marshmallow (Japan) CDs are available at this address. His most recent trio collection is sold in the US by Eastwind, a distributor with an internet retail operation. Swinging Rendezvous (Marshmallow) includes Lundgren’s long-time bassist Jesper Lundgaard and drummer Alex Riel, Scandinavian veterans who have played with a cross-section of the best European and American musicians. It is a trio of rare swing and cohesion. Their workout on Thelonious Monk’s “Well, You Needn’t” is a masterpiece of common intent, interaction and reaction. Lundgren supports his improvisational wizardry with speed, precision, dynamic mastery and a sense of romance. He is a modern bebop pianist at the highest level. If you think that “modern” and “bebop” constitute an oxymoron, listen to Lundgren.
All but one of the CD’s 11 pieces were written by major jazzmen, among them Monk, J.J. Johnson, Mal Waldron and Oscar Pettiford. The exception, the folk ditty “Billy Boy,” is so closely associated with Red Garland that many people no doubt think Garland wrote it. Lundgren tackles two pieces by Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers’ ebullient “Whims of Chambers” and “Third World” by Herbie Nichols. He and Lundgaard interpret the elusive harmonic nuances of Nichols’ music so effectively that he makes me wish the trio would take on more of Nichols’ eccentric compositions. Indeed, interpretation, not imitation, is what Lundgren practices. Waldron, Nichols, Kelly, Bud Powell, Bill Evans, Bengt Hallberg, Oscar Peterson and other predecessors inspired Lundgren, but he has absorbed and melded their elements into a style that Japanese and Scandinavian listeners have taken to their hearts. It may be that now is Lundgren’s time in the United States.
Go here and here for Rifftides reviews of previous Lundgren CDs.