Dear listener! After having combined the Fab4-quartet with different guests over the years, I felt the inspiration to invite a pianist into the Fab4-world. Since I am a long time fan of the Italian piano legend Rita Marcotulli, it felt natural to ask her to collaborate. We got together in Stockholm in April 2022 and recorded nine brand new songs together. I hope you will enjoy the result of this collaboration and thank you so much for listening!

Since the debut album ”Stay a while” in 2020, Gothenburg based Simon Westman Trio have had success on streaming platforms with 3 million streams. Now, they are back with a new album - Moving Forward. Pianist Simon Westman has composed most of the songs, and master of sound engineering, Åke Linton, has been involved helping the trio get a great sound at Swedish recording studio ”Svenska Grammofonstudion” in Gothenburg. With this album, the three musicians - all of them strong voices on the Swedish jazz scene - have found their sound and their interaction even more. Strong melodies has become something of a hallmark for the trio, as for the mix of sensitivity and great energy. It’s a very dynamic and playful trio, the new album will be released on the 3:rd of March 2023 on Prophone Records. The trio is Simon Westman - Piano, Magnus Bergström - Double Bass, Magnus Gran - Drums.

Håkan Broström is one of Sweden’s top names in jazz. Håkan Broström has toured and played as a band leader and sideman with artists as Eje Thelin, Tim Hagans, Bobo Stenson, Adam Nussbaum, Joey Calderazzo, Palle Danielsson, Esbjörn Svensson, Ulf Wakenius, Jeff "Tain" Watts and many more. Broström has led several small groups and is also the leader of "New Places Orchestra" which is a big band. He has also been a member of Norbotten Big Band for many years.

New Places Orchestra was formed in 2010. Since then the band has done a lot of different interesting projects with guest artists as well as successful performances on their own. The band has worked with artists such as Viktoria Tolstoy, Rigmor Gustafsson, Tommy Körberg, Meja, Ulf Wakenius, Sven Zetterberg, Jennifer Brown, Movits, Doggelito, LaGaylia Frazer and more.

Mattias Åström writes: “When writing and choosing material for this record I realized in the end that three of seven songs were waltzes. One of them sounded in some way Swedish, somehow simple and in the key of C. Another of the songs, “Smaland Detour”, made me think of the accordion. Is there something Swedish about the waltz and the accordion? I don’t know, but ”Swedish Waltz” felt like a suitable title for the album. The trio on this record has played together for a long time. This is our third album, though the first one was never released. We all met in Uppsala and have played together in different bands and gigs for more than twenty years.

Drummer Daniel Olsson, from Sala, studied at Gothenburg Academy of Music and has always been in great demand. Bassist Erik Ojala went to Berklee College of Music and was a student of bassist Marc Johnson. It has been a truly wonderful experience to keep on playing with this trio. We recorded this album at Studio Kultivator in Bandhagen Stockholm run by engineer Jonas Olofsson. The recording was made in one day and the goal was to document the trio under good circumstances - with a nice grand piano and studio… The title of the ballad “Letting Go”, is about letting go of control while playing - easier said than done, but maybe that is what jazz is all about? Hope you enjoy the music!”

The album Powerplay is a collection of original tunes inspired both by jazz today and grooves from the past. Modern jazz has had a clear influence on the blues tune Goldish, a homage to American organ player Larry Goldings. The title track Powerplay takes influences from modern organ jazz and Sam Yahel Trio. A more traditional sound is found in the songs FU and It Ain’t Swingin’ where you can hear the light touch from old swing tradition combined with the simple and natural groove from gospel. In the songs Marklandsgatan and Midday Lullaby the trio plays simplistic and honest, feeling the Nordic melancholy, whilst Peroni Double makes you think of the 60’s and the rawer organ grooves from back then. The album is recorded at Studio Epidemien with the legendary Åke Linton as recording- and mixing engineer.

Alexander Lövmark writes: “Dear listener, thank you for taking an interest in my record. Little Bird is a tribute to my lifelong love of the Great American Songbook. It features songs I love to sing and treasure listening to. The album was recorded in September 2020 in my hometown, Gothenburg, Sweden. It was a challenging year for me. However, the magic of music carried me through, and I am sincerely grateful to everyone who invested time, energy, and effort into making the album; I would not be here without your support. It means so much to me to share Little Bird with you all.”

Trumpeter and singer Peter Asplund invited some of Sweden's top jazz musicians to make a joint Christmas album; the result is The Christmas Feeling.“People often get the question: What do you associate with Christmas? For me it's community with loved ones, the sense of quiet, the beautiful winter landscape and all the Christmas music!” - Peter Asplund (Prophone)

Ellen Andersson has been described as two voices in one - the young, curious and the older, experienced - a performer with a rare artistic weight. Her second album in her own name is titled You Should Have Told Me. She has in recent years been seen and heard on stages and concert halls across the country, including with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. (Prophone)

Folk music has always been an obvious inspiration for symphonic repertoire. The Nordan Suite explores these possibilities according to current trends. Singer-instrumentalist Lena Willemark and multi-instrumentalist Ale Möller, two unique Swedish musicians, have continuously formed ties to other musical worlds that allow new music to arise. This new CD marks a cooperative effort with arranger and composer Hans Ek, who, together with Ale Möller, composed the music. For the past 25 years, Hans Ek has made the symphony orchestra into a meeting place for classical, jazz, pop and folk music.

Classical Music

Two years after the release of her latest album - the widely critically acclaimed Imprints - Karin Hammar now releases her new album Circles. Like last time, Hammar works with her group Karin Hammar Fab 4 to help her shape 8 new compositions and an interpretation of Nina Simone's "Four Women" into her own musical landscape. The new compositions draw inspiration from such diverse encounters and places: Brazil, Morrocco, her daughter Ella, fellow musician Hildegunn Öiseth, to name a few. The title track was written in a small compartment backstage at Malmö Arena in Sweden prior to a show with Swedish pop star Orup. The Karin Hammar Fab 4 line up includes some of Sweden's finest jazz players: Niklas Fernqvist on bass, Fredrik Rundqvist on drums and new member, guitarist, Andreas Hourdakis who brings a new form, shape, and level to the group's sound. Karin Hammar is widely seen as one of Sweden's foremost trombone players, with four studio albums as a solo artist and numerous collaborations under her belt since debuting in the nineties. She's been given numerous awards in Sweden, including a prize from the Alice Babs foundation.

All the music on this album was recorded in different spaces with different acoustic conditions, using an improvisation-based approach that left much or all to the impulses of the place and moment. Half of the pieces on the album consist of solos for flutes of different sizes, with minimal accompaniment. The others were played in duo with double bassist Johannes Lundberg and were recorded in two spaces with big, warm acoustics: the main exhibition hall at the Nordic Watercolour Museum and Ohlin Hall at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg.

Stína Ágústsdóttir brings us a new album in 2022. It contains songs that reflect the many sides of a human being, both the pretty and the ugly, and that it’s ok to be a mess and need help. Drown to Die a Little demands your attention and rewards you in return. It’s a sensual and soulful work of jazz fusion with a good portion of Scandinavian elegance.

Ágústsdóttir is considered one of Iceland’s best jazz artists and nowadays she’s just as established in Sweden. She is known for her energetic live performances, not only in Scandinavia, but also in her previous home of Montréal. She has been nominated for the Icelandic music prize a few times, both for her album Jazz á íslensku (Jazz in Icelandic, 2017) and for The Whale (2021).

"In 2016 I got seriously ill and needed to put my life on hold. I managed to get back on my feet, with the help of family and friends, and the music on the record is about this journey from darkness towards light...

I’ve worked with guitarist and songwriter Mikael Máni Ásmundsson on two albums before and we continued the collaboration on this album. He helped me finish some of the songs and even wrote new music to some of the lyrics I had. I reached out to a couple of other songwriters for collaboration, Maïa Davies and Jan Alexander...we recorded at the legendary Sigur Rós studio, Sundlaugin, with the best band ever!: Henrik Linder on bass (Dirty Loops), Mikael Máni on guitar, Magnús Jóhann Ragnarsson on keys, Magnús Trygvason Elíassen on drums and Albert Finnbogason helped produce and mixed the album. We also had a string quartet and harp on a couple of tunes." --Ágústsdóttir

A double vinyl edition featuring tracks not included on the CD release!

Adam Forkelid writes: “Sometimes, all of a sudden, everything lines up and a clear path is shown to you. That is what happened the very first time I played with the band you hear on this album. Everything seemed to fall in to place and the feeling that a permanent group had formed was immediate. So after a couple of gigs and rehearsals we went into the studio and this record was born. Music and life sometimes make great leaps. Gnossienne is a word I borrowed from the great Erik Satie, to whom I also want to dedicate the song. Nocturnal of course has its fair share of maestro Chopin. And The Beat I would like to dedicate to the late and great Chick Corea. Without you, I would never have gotten started in the first place. Your spirit will live on forever.”

Helge Albin writes: “Interacting is the fourteenth album released by TBB. The title track itself is a way of highlighting my way of orchestrating different sections in the band and how they Interact with each other. I’ve always wanted the big band to play with the flexibility of a quartet, So I chose players who can play like that. Keeping this band together for over 40 years! Wow! Wow! Wow! What a journey! Touring all over the world, mostly featuring the band and it’s soloists by itself, but also with special projects together with jazz Giants like Dave Liebman and Michael Brecker. To me, music’s purpose is to express and modulate emotion, and with music being a language beyond words (which makes perfect sense to me!) I wish that the music in this album will give you a musical adventure about this!”