[Dixielandjazz] Bengt Hallberg RIP

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Sad to see the prodigious Swedish pianist has departed this life at the age of 80.
While much of his music (and there is a huge amount of that) is well beyond the scope of what is discussed approvingly on this site, his solo LP HALLBERG'S HAPPINESS is a very interesting performance of work, including very accomplished stride piano, and some Swedish material, on the same sort of interface between jazz and European ethnic music and modern concert music as interested Bix and his contemporaries. 

When he should be hot he is hot, and on that recording he doesn't strike me as anywhere leaving the boat of the "hot", whatever else he did elsewhere. 

If anybody's going to talk about more recent young musicians doing innovative things in tradition, remember the older Europeans and performances like Hallberg's on that session. 


Robert R. Calder