[Dixielandjazz] Svend Asmussen R.I.P.

[Marek Boym]

Svend Asmussen indeed seems to have been there forever.  While not all his
records have any jazz content (one must make a living, mustn't one?), his
jazz recordings are on the highest level.
We'll remember him and play his records as long as we live.
Blessed be his memory.

On 17 February 2017 at 03:16, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> Svend Asmussen, an Early Master of Jazz Violin, Dies at 100
>
>
> by Peter Keepnews
>
> New York Times, February 10, 2017
>
>
> Svend Asmussen, a Danish jazz violinist whose collaborators over more than
> 70 years included Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, the Indian violinist L.
> Subramaniam and the bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman, died on Feb. 7. He
> was 100.
>
>
> Mr. Asmussen’s son Claus confirmed the death to The Associated Press. He
> did not say where his father died.
>
>
> Mr. Asmussen was one of the first world-class jazz musicians from
> Scandinavia and one of the first jazz violinists of note. The jazz writer
> Doug Ramsey placed him among “the handful (or fewer) of violinists who in
> the 1930s proved their instrument capable of swing and emotional expression
> at the highest jazz level.”
>
>
> Inspired by recordings of the American violinists Joe Venuti and Stuff
> Smith, Mr. Asmussen began leading a small group in Copenhagen in the
> mid-1930s. By the end of the decade his group was regularly opening for,
> and impressing, visiting American musicians like Fats Waller.
>
>
> An ebullient performer, Mr. Asmussen was known for his onstage singing and
> clowning as well as his playing. He rarely performed outside Europe, but he
> did tour the United States in the late 1950s and early ’60s with the
> Swe-Danes, a vocal and instrumental trio with the Swedish vocalist Alice
> Babs and the Danish guitarist Ulrik Neumann.
>
>
> Among his more celebrated recordings were two albums made in the 1960s
> that teamed him with other great jazz violinists: “Duke Ellington’s Jazz
> Violin Session,” with Stephane Grappelli and Ray Nance, and “The Violin
> Summit,” with Grappelli, Smith and Jean-Luc Ponty. He also recorded with
> the pianist John Lewis and the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, as well as with
> Mr. Subramaniam, on the 1978 album “Garland,” and Mr. Grisman, on the 1987
> album “Svingin’ With Svend.”
>
>
> He continued performing and recording well into the 21st century.
>
>
> Sven Harald Christian Asmussen was born in Copenhagen on Feb. 28, 1916,
> and began taking piano lessons at 5 before switching to violin. He attended
> dental school but, he said in a 1955 interview, did not have “the least
> interest in dentistry” and was playing music professionally before he was
> out of his teens.
>
>   Survivors include his wife, Ellen Bick Meier, and three children from
> his marriage to Annegrethe Thomassen, who died in 2000. 30
>
>
> Bob Ringwald piano, Solo, Duo, Trio, Quartet, Quintet
> Fulton Street Jazz Band (Dixieland/Swing)
> 916/ 806-9551 <(916)%20806-9551>
> Amateur (ham) Radio Station K6YBV
>
> "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short
> phrases:
> If it moves, tax it.
> If it keeps moving, regulate it.
> And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
> - Ronald Reagan
>
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