A sizzling mosaic of music from sixteen countries and five continents. Music that you never knew of, melodies that have survived for centuries and songs created just the other day. Blues from the Mekong Delta and topical verses from the streets of Kampala, funeral tunes and love songs - enormous variety! Percussion intertwining with lutes and flutes. Let an amadinda, a cinh-k'naar or a kaval enthrall you! Listen to great singers and instrumental virtuosos! These recordings were made in site but are neither traditional field recordings nor regular studio products. "We recorded authentic music, the kind that can be of interest to listeners the world over", to quote Sten Sandahl, one of the producers who contributed to the series "Music from...". The majority of these recordings were made with support from SIDA with the aim of raising the status of music both inside and outside the countries.

The word ‘paradise’ floats in the mind like a shimmering balloon, and through its Perisan origin signifies a utopian venue for all our dreams of a better life, beyond linguistic and cultural barriers. Music is a language. Or rather, many languages at once, understood through confluence, and without the need for standardizing language classes and grammar. Urban Turban & Shamim Naghedi’s new album on the Caprise Record label can be likened to shredding a number of phrase books and stitching them back together in completely new configurations. Thirteen popular Swedish ‘schlager’ hits, with Persian lyrics. Sant ar livit (You Can Have Her), Ar det konstigt att man langtar bort nan gang (I’m Gonna Be a Country Girl Again) and Grat inga tarar, as no one has heard them before. With new rhythms, and slightly modified melodies, played on unusual instruments. Unfamiliar- yes. Familiar- yes. But why Swedish hits from the 1960s, and why in Persian? The short answer on the second part of that question is pure playfulness and fate combined. “The lyrics could easily have been translated into any language,” says Peter Bryngelsson. Why it became Persion is a direct consequence of the meeting between the two Iranian singers Safoura Safavi and Shamim Naghedi, both of whom are also responsible for the translation of the lyrics.

Classical Music

Svensk jazzhistoria is a unique series about the evolution of jazz in Sweden, published by Caprice Records. While the first ten volumes reflect the years between 1899 and 1969, this red-hot eleventh installment delves deep into the 1970s. On four albums with a total of 62 tracks, and a book of 188 pages, we summarize a vigorous, explosive, and many-sided decade of Swedish jazz. Like with the preceding ten volumes, volume 11 is the masterstroke of “jazz archaeologist” Jan Bruer. Assisting him this time is Viveka Hellstrom and Jorgen Adolfsson, both research assistants at the Swedish Centre for Folk Music and Jazz Research. All three of them describe the 1970s as a decade characterized by a large breadth of styles, and many new inspirations.

Swedish Jazz History- a series of album compilations released by Caprice Records- chronicles jazz in Sweden with representative recordings up until the 1970s. Volume 11 is a comprehensive set of four albums with a total of 62 tracks, including some unissued items. It presents a vast selection of music by artists such as Alice Babs, Monica Dominique, Nannie Porres, Monica Zetterlund, Lars Gullin, Georg Riedel, Bernt Rosengren, The Swedish Radio Jazz Group, and more. Many sources of studio and live recordings are used from different locations in Sweden. This album reflects Swedish jazz of the 1970s, characterized by internationalization and intercultural influences. Foreign Sweden-based artists like Red Mitchell, Maffy Falay and Okay Temiz worked with Swedish musicians. For instance, with its Turkish influences, the Sevda group was a forerunner in what would later develop into the World Music genre. The 1970s was a musically rich decade where older jazz coexisted with new, freely improvised forms, influenced by both American and European avant-garde artists. Different kinds of Fusion, mixing jazz with other styles and expressions, became popular, such as Jazz Rock/ Jazz Funk.

With the third release in Svenskt visarkiv’s Sångarporträtt (Singer’s Portrait) series, it is now folk singer Thyra Karlsson’s turn. Märta Ramsten, who made most of the circa three hundred recordings of Thyra, describes the process of creating this compilation: “Painting a singer’s portrait of Thyra Karlsson is not hard with the help of her songs – except for the fact that it’s always difficult to have to select a only few. This selection of folk tunes and ballads hopefully reveals her joy of singing. Her beloved zither is heard on the recordings, often as a very discrete accompaniment.” Musicologist and previous director of Svenskt visarkiv (Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research) Märta Ramsten, who, together with Ville Roempke, made recordings of Thyra, has written insightful liner notes about the recordings and the songs which were eventually chosen for inclusion on this CD from the Caprice label. It was one of Thyra’s dreams to make a record, which unfortunately was not fulfilled until after her death in 2001. This year, however, Thyra becomes properly acknowledged with the CD release by folk music trio Triakel, which includes a part of Thyra’s repertoire. A taste of Triakel’s very fine interpretation of two of Thyra’s songs can be heard on the last two tracks of this Caprice CD: “Gubben och gumman” (The Old Man and Woman), and “Om jag en gång en man ska ha” (If Ever I Shall Have a Man). Both of these can also be heard on the CD with Thyra’s versions.

This record is a panorama of contemporary Turkish music. As such it includes traditional music - folk and classical - and also new popular music, in which Western, Indian och North African influences are combined. The music group Sameyda consists of six eminent Turkish musicians, all residing in Sweden at the time of this recoding. The group was founded by singer Sevinc Uygur, who also leads the group. Uygur also picked out the repertoire for the group, a great part of which she copied from the Turkish Radio's Folk Music Orchestras, a kind of modern versions of folk songs with strong melodies and rhythms. Many of the lyrics are humoristic and light spirited, built up around rhymes and jingles, and with love as a general theme.

One of the towering figures of American music, Cherry was part of the revolutionary free-bop quartet led by Coleman, an ensemble that helped shift the conversation about jazz from chord changes and swing to freedom and energy. By the late '60s, the pocket-cornet player was living in Sweden, with his wife Karlsson, playing with Swedish musicians from all backgrounds, seeking out exciting partners in a somewhat hippie-like atmosphere. It was in this milieu, in the summers of '71 and '72 that Cherry recorded the tracks for his legendary double LP, Organic Music Society, which was released on Caprice and is now reissued for the first time on CD. The sessions that comprise Organic Music Society are varied and represent several directions in Cherry's oeuvre.

One of the towering figures of American music, Cherry was part of the revolutionary free-bop quartet led by Coleman, an ensemble that helped shift the conversation about jazz from chord changes and swing to freedom and energy. By the late '60s, the pocket-cornet player was living in Sweden, with his wife Karlsson, playing with Swedish musicians from all backgrounds, seeking out exciting partners in a somewhat hippie-like atmosphere. It was in this milieu, in the summers of '71 and '72 that Cherry recorded the tracks for his legendary double LP, Organic Music Society, which was released on Caprice and is now reissued for the first time on CD. The sessions that comprise Organic Music Society are varied and represent several directions in Cherry's oeuvre.

When we use the terms "Greek traditional," "Grek folk," or "Greek demotic" music today, we mean songs and tunes coming from the past, from areas that were home to Christian farmers, shepherds and sailors during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Mostly- though not exclusively- Greek speaking, these populations lived, as was normal then, in close proximity with other ethnic, linguistic, or religious groups. In these areas, some of which now form modern-day Greece, the oral tradition of folk song and ecclesiastical music were the only available forms of musical expression. This album is the highly anticipated re-release of the 1980 album of the same name, extended with tracks licensed from the Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association. Domna Samiou (1928-2012) was a charismatic and multifaceted personality who dedicated her life to a quest which is now synonymous with her name: the preservation, dissemination and teaching of Greek traditional "folk" music.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This unique collection of recordings features three major Swedish composers of the 20th century conducting their own works. Kurt Atterberg began studying music in 1902 after having been inspired by a concert by the Brussels String Quartet. Six years later he became a performer in the Stockholm Concert Society, now known as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. That same year he published his first work- Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1. His String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 2, soon followed. He studied both electrical engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology and music at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson was born in �karp in 1908, the son of a factory worker and a nurse. He studied with Ellberg at the Stockholm Conservatory (1925-1929) and with Alban Berg and Fritz Reuter in Vienna and Leipzig (1929-1930), then worked for Swedish radio and taught at the Stockholm Conservatory (1947-1959) and Uppsala University where he held the position as Director musices (1961-1966). His style as a composer is eclectic, ranging from the late Romantic to techniques derived from Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-note system, but original in method. He was the first Swede to write serial music. Ingvar Lidholm was born in J�nk�ping. By age twelve, he was writing songs in a tonal and romantic idiom, which led gradually to exercises of larger proportions, including music for full orchestra. This early period also included orchestration studies with Natanael Berg in Stockholm. Lidholm's primary performance area was stringed instruments; he eventually studied and mastered all four instruments of the string family. He went on to compose a number of works of varying genres, and found success in the mid-twentieth century.

Classical Music