The now legendary jazz album was released in 1964 Jazz on Svenska (Jazz in Swedish). On it the pianist Jan Johansson interpreted old Swedish folk songs as jazz instrumentals. It was a groundbreaking album in Sweden that sold over a million copies and had a major impact on the development of Scandinavian jazz. One dark winter night, 46 years later, another Swedish musician, Tomas Hegert, probably inspired by the minimalist sound of the original album, consisting only of piano and a deep, calm acoustic bass, decided to start a new musical project: Jazz on Svenska in Dub! Now the result is available as a download album and bears the proud title Dub on Svenska. It is by far the most exciting and at the same time the most beautiful Dub-Album I've come across in the last few months. Hegert congenially transforms Johansson's warm sound into finely arranged and at the same time powerfully dynamic Dub-Beats, which are not infrequently used by rather atypical instruments such as z. B. an acoustic guitar. The melancholy, beautiful melodies of the old folk songs, once interpreted by Johansson exclusively on the piano, now sound, played by instruments such as xylophone, accordion, trombone, melodica or violin, almost floating above the earthy sound of drum & bass. What sounds pretty weird in the description is actually the perfect combination of two supposed opposites: how z. B. Chocolate and chilli - the synaesthesia of two worlds. By the way, Hey-O-Hansen have a similar approach, with their combination of Tyrolean mountain music and Dub. The Twinkel Brothers too Inna Polish Stylee come to mind or Mahala Rai Banda with hers Balkan reggae. Even if purists turn up their noses, I believe that Dub was made exactly for this: to dare the experiment.
