Stockholm Jazz and Blues Festival

I spent the summer of 1980, when I was 17, vagabonding across Europe with my friend Erik Gram. One day in Copenhagen we were kidnapped by a gang of young Swedish women and taken – very much to our delight – to their hometown on the west coast of Sweden. There we set up camp on the beach near the popular resort of Tylosand, and indulged in the best that Sweden has to offer.

The uncle of one of those charming girls – all high school students – turned out to be none other then Bosse Stenhammer, the owner of the legendary Mosebake Jazz Club in Stockholm and the founder/director of the Stockholm Jazz and Blues Festival. He had a cottage nearby and one day we were taken to meet him. When he learned that Erik and I were both jazz lovers he insisted that we come work for him at his jazz festival, which was to take place in a week or so. With little hesitation we agreed.

And so it was that Erik and I got to see performances by and in some cases hang out with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, David Murray, George Adams and many other jazz giants. This was the dawn of the modern era of jazz festivals, the great commercial enterprises with vast audiences and huge lineups. The Stockholm festival was still relatively small, however, and it was tended with great love and respect by Bosse Stenhammer, an exceptionally generous ands capable man.

The festival took place outdoors, on a small island park called Skeppsholmen in the middle of the city. The setting was stunningly beautiful. Erik and I, being broke and carefree, happily slept under a hot-dog vending stand the first night we were there. When Marie and Gia – our Swedish girlfriends since Copenhagen – discovered this, they went straight to Bosse and demanded we be put up somewhere. So Bosse arranged for us to stay in an empty naval barracks on the island. We had a room with 40 bunk beds in it to ourselves. He also gave us unlimited access to the hospitality lounge, which was always stocked with lots of fine food and drink, including booze. And in exchange for this we were required to be stagehands and gophers for our heroes. It was tough. So tough that I came back the next year and spent an entire month there, working at Bosse’s bar and helping with the festival.

The festival lineup during those two years (’80 and ’81) was extraordinary. The house band, for example, consisted of bebop pioneer Hank Jones on piano, longtime Swedish resident Red Mitchell on bass, and former Mingus drummer Dannie Richmond on drums (replaced by Alan Dawson in ’81). Other musicians I got to see live there included Dexter Gordon, Gerry Mulligan, Art Blakey, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Sahib Shihab, Bill Watrous, swing legends Maxine Sullivan and Wild Bill Davison, Steve Turre, Chico Freeman, Kenny Wheeler, James Cotton, Gatemouth Brown, Odetta, Phil Woods, Roy Hargrove and Arthur Blythe, among many others.

A few memorable highlights:

Trumpet legend Woody Shaw doing tai-chi before his gig on a cliff overlooking the stage. Erik had been studying tai-chi so we approached Woody Shaw and spoke to him about it, and about music. He was kind to us and when saying goodbye gave us a half a joint. We were very grateful and enjoyed his beautiful performance basking in his aura. Tragically, he died in very difficult circumstances some years later.

One evening, sitting in the audience I listened in awe to folksinger Odetta, whom I had never heard of before. She paused after completing a song and in my enthusiasm I yelled out the name of a folk song that I grew up singing with my family on long road trips, Deep Blue Sea. She looked over towards me and said in surprise, “That’s strange, that was going to be my next song.”

I stood transfixed about 5 metres away from drummer Jack de Johnette as he played a 20-minute drum solo of such magnificent beauty and power that the world seemed to shift on its axis and move to his beat. Utterly mind-boggling and heart-stopping. The speed with which he moved was like something out of The Matrix. I can actually recall watching this surging multi-limbed blur in which his arms and hands and drumsticks seemed to be seventeen places at once. Extraordinary.

After the great George Adams finished his fabulously intense set, in which he literally bent over backwards and arched himself to the floor while wailing ferociously on his tenor sax, and during which he also surprised his audience by singing some wild and raw blues songs, a fan ran over and accosted him as he was climbing into a jeep and leaving the stage area. “George Adams, George Adams”, the Scandinavian fan cried, “You are so great! You are fantastic! You are the second-greatest blues singer in the world!” George ignored him. He was exhausted. It was raining. The jeep was waiting. But the fan kept screaming. “George Adams George Adams, you are the second greatest blues singer in the world!” Finally the jeep is pulling away and George sticks his head out of the window in the rain and yells back. “Well who’s the greatest?” But the jeep roars off and the crowd closes in and the fan is gone.

Harp-player James Cotton and guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown, two of the all-time-great electric bluesmen, each played a week at the Mosebacke Bar with their bands. I saw them each up close and personal, and a lifetime of blues was written on their faces. James Cotton’s eyes were like hard fire. Gatemouth Brown’s skin was like scarred leather. They were tough motherfuckers. Badass bluesmen in the flesh. And they played – and acted – like the devil had ‘em by the balls.

It was an amazing opportunity. Not just to hear music played by jazz giants. But to sit in the lounge and watch them interact; to watch Al Cohn and Zoot Sims shooting the shit, the two of them representing huge swaths of jazz history, Al Cohn having been a pal of Bix Beiderbecke back in the ‘30s and Zoot Sims having shot heroin with every jazz junkie who ever lived. To see these men and women (a few anyway) comporting themselves in their loose, wise, dignified manner. It was as moving and instructive as the music itself. Possibly moreso. And I will always be grateful to Bosse Stenhammer for giving me such a gift. Just one among many that he has given to music fans through his efforts.

© john sobol 2003