Christmas With My Friends IVNils LandgrenAlbumGenre: JazzDescription: PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN KURZBESCHREIBUNG And year after year it rings out at Christmastime: Nils Landgren's 'Christmas With My Friends' ensemble is a loyal companion for the most wonderful time of the year. The fourth edition again presents a diverse selection of international Swedish traditional and modern carols and atmospheric secular popular songs with the familiar hushed and intimate mood we have come to know and love. 'There are still so many songs that touch us and that we want to make our own' Landgren explains the reason for recording another 'Christmas With My Friends'. Nils Landgren understands like few other band leaders how to put his comrades into the limelight to give them the freedom to stamp their personalities on the music: Jessica Pilnäs shines with her mellow crystal-clear voice complemented by the soulful timbre of Ida Sand who also takes charge of the piano. Soprano Jeanette Köhn lends especially the traditional Christmas carols the necessary classical emphasis and Sharon Dyall provides the bluesy touch like on Odetta's If Anybody Asks You. With his tastefully reduced acoustic guitar accompaniment Johan Norberg injects the folk-music influence and builds the harmonious foundation perfectly supplemented by Eva Kruse with her restrained and creamy bass. The jazzy embellishments from Johan Knutsson's saxophone set the interpretations alight and give them magnitude and candour. And over and over Nils Landgren's butter-soft trombone punctuates the atmospheric music and his typically fragile vocals touch the soul for example in the intimate duet with Johan Norberg on his own composition 'I Wish It Was Christmas'. REZENSION In 2005 Swedish trombonist and bandleader Nils Landgren assembled a few musician friends for a Christmas concert in a Stockholm church. A recording of it scored a surprise hit especially in Germany and they did it again two years later. This is the fourth edition of what has now become a sell-out concert series with platinum-selling albums. The secret lies in the combination of simple intimacy polished musicianship and a programme full of subtly chosen surprises. Duke Ellington Gustav Holst J Fred Coots traditional Swedish and German carols they re all brought together with just the right touch. 4 STARS --The ObserverThe Scandinavians know how to do Christmas just as they know how to do cool intimate jazz. So it s probably no wonder that Swedish trombonist singer and bandleader Nils Landgren has created a successful niche with festive compilations that are well cool and intimate. Packaged in tinsel-tastic green and silver this fourth volume the first recorded in a studio features the same seven friends as on previous albums. Friends such as soprano Jeanette Köhn lending her crystalline vocals to the traditional German carol Maria durch ein Dornwald ging and Johann Norberg performing his own pretty Icicles on the kantele a Finnish dulcimer. Familiar fare Last Christmas Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and What a Wonderful World comes spare and schmaltz-free. The highlight? A swinging take on Odessa s If Anybody Asks You with voice bass harmonica and trombone bringing in some Scandinavian gospel. --Evening Standard
