[Dixielandjazz] Rolf Sundby RIP

[Ken Mathieson]

I'm sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but I heard today that Rolf Sundby died on July 16th. He was an excellent trumpeter and arranger, but his playing went beyond technical ability and was never less than musical and tasteful. His technique had been well-crafted in a spell with with the Royal Army Band during his military service in his native Norway. 

I got to know him when he came to Glasgow from Norway in the early 1960s to study Chemical Engineering, as there were no universities in Norway offering courses in that subject at that time. His main influences were Louis Amrstrong and Clifford Brown and he was soon a regular sitter-in on trumpet around the Glasgow jazz scene, which is how I got to know him. We became life-long friends through jazz. I was a bit in awe of him, for not only was he a fine technical player, but he had great taste and a deep knowledge of jazz. On top of that, he was living in a foreign land, studying in a foreign language, had a wife at home in Norway and eventually graduated with First Class Honours, one of only two students to do so that year.

In those days, he had to get a loan from the Norwegian government to fund his studies in Scotland, and  the irony of this is that, on graduation, he immediately had migrate to Sweden to earn enough to pay off the loan, and lived the rest of his life there in spite of claiming to pay Income Tax at 120%.

It also meant that he played jazz at every opportunity in order to help pay the bills and have fun. He played with various Swedish bands over the years, but most notably for the Peoria Jazzband of Gothenburg, with which he worked all over Europe and USA, and with his own Vintage Jazz Band. He recorded extensively with both bands and wrote most of their arrangements, for he was a fine arranger as well being an excellent trumpeter. His musical interests were wide and he was equally at home playing in revivalist New Orleans bands as he was sitting in the trumpet section of a post-bop big band. He visited New Orleans several times with Peoria and played there at Fretzels, so some NOLA DJML listmates may remember him. 

In recent years, heart trouble restricted his activities a bit, but it was cancer that finally took him. Rolf is survived by his wife, Aud, and his son, Terje, who is himself a fine pro drummer/percussionist/composer in a fiercely contemporary vein.

Regards,

Ken