Jan Lundgren

Jan Lundgren, born on 22 March 1966 in Olofström, Blekinge, and resident in Ystad since 2005, is an internationally active Swedish jazz musician. He is a pianist, composer, and senior lecturer at the Malmö Academy of Music, where he has taught since autumn 1991, as well as the Artistic Director of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, Ystad Winter Piano Fest and Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen. Jan Lundgren is a Steinway Artist and has won many awards. He tours internationally and is signed to the German record label, ACT.

Biography

Jan Lundgren was born in Olofström and grew up in Ronneby in the south of Sweden. He started to play the piano at the age of five, and decided in his late teens to become a professional musician. After graduating from the Malmo Academy of Music in 1991, he began to establish himself as a musician on the Swedish jazz scene. Initially, he was often a sideman in various contexts and styles, and collaborated with many well-known artists in Sweden. As his own career took off, he focused on working as a soloist and developing artistic collaborations. Early in his career, he played with Swedish jazz musicians such as Arne Domnérus, Putte Wickman and Rune Gustafsson and through that gained an invaluable grounding in the Swedish jazz tradition. It was Arne Domnérus who discovered Jan Lundgren.

Jan Lungren’s international career began in the mid-1990s, when the first album under his own name, ''Conclusion'', released in 1994, was launched in Europe, North America and Japan. His first contacts with the American jazz scene developed via the saxophonist Herb Geller into regular collaborations with Dick Bank, a producer for Fresh Sound Records.

In 1995, he formed the Jan Lundgren Trio with bassist Mattias Svensson and drummer Rasmus Kihlberg. The trio’s breakthrough came through the album ''Swedish Standards'' in 1997, which won Orkesterjournalen’s Gyllene skivan award for the Year’s Best Jazz Album. In 2000, Jan Lundgren became the first Scandinavian jazz pianist to play at Carnegie Hall in New York when the trio took part in the concert “Swedish Jazz Salutes the USA”.

During the 2000s, his international career continued to progress, and his artistic development broadened and deepened. In the first decade, Jan Lundgren placed great emphasis on his trio. Subsequently, he has been involved in several other constellations and made space for his own composing. Throughout his career, he has sought out and initiated artistic collaborations. This has led to projects with leading artists, both in the studio and in concert. These include ''Mare Nostrum'' with Paolo Fresu and Richard Galliano, ''Magnum Mysterium'' with Gustaf Sjökvist’s chamber choir and Lars Danielsson, ''Jan Lundgren Trio'' with Mattias Svensson and Zoltán Csörsz, ''Jazz på svenskt vis'' with the Jan Lundgren Trio & Göteborg Wind Orchestra, ''Potsdamer Quartet'' with Jukka Perko, Dan Berglund and Morten Lund, ''A Tribute to Jan Johansson'' with Mattias Svensson and a string quartet, ''Kristallen'' with Nils Landgren and ''Into the Night'' with Lars Danielsson and Émile Parisien.

Collaborations

Collaborations initiated before 2000

''Swedish artists and musicians''

Jazz: Karl-Martin Almqvist, Peter Asplund, Hans Backenroth, Anders Bergcrantz, Arne Domnérus, Lars Erstrand, Rune Gustafsson, Rasmus Kihlberg, Gunnar “Siljabloo” Nilsson, Mattias Svensson, Viktoria Tolstoy, Ulf Wakenius, Putte Wickman, Monica Zetterlund.
Popular music: Povel Ramel, Sylvia Vrethammar.

''International artists and musicians''

Eric Alexander, Joe Ascione, Benny Bailey, Chuck Berghofer, Deborah Brown, Conte Candoli, Dave Carpenter, Billy Drummond, Art Farmer, Herb Geller, Benny Golson, Johnny Griffin, Vincent Herring, Paul Kreibich, Joe LaBarbera, Jesper Lundgaard, Katrine Madsen, Bill Perkins, Rich Perry, Alex Riel, Peter Washington.

Collaborations initiated after 2000

''Swedish artists and musicians''

Jazz: Miriam Aida, Hans Backenroth, Dan Berglund, Lars Danielsson, Ronnie Gardiner, Bengt Hallberg, Nils Landgren, Klas Lindquist, Carin Lundin, Georg Riedel, Zoltán Csörsz, Hannah Svensson, Ewan Svensson, Jojje Wadenius.
World music: Bengan Janson, Filip Jers, Ale Möller.
Classical music: Håkan Hardenberger, Gustaf Sjökvist, Göran Söllscher.
Popular musik: Pernilla Andersson, Marit Bergman, Jason Diakité, Göran Fristorp, LaGaylia Frazier, Hayati Kafe, Lill Lindfors, Edda Magnason, Michael Saxell.

''Swedish writers and actors''

Pernilla August, Jacques Werup.

''International artists and musicians''

Harry Allen, Arild Andersen, Jacob Fischer, Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Nico Gori, Wolfgang Haffner, Scott Hamilton, Pete Jolly, Stacey Kent, Trudy Kerr, Rebecca Kilgore, Lee Konitz, Morten Lund, Grégoire Maret, Charlie Mariano, Andy Martin, James Moody, Cæcilie Norby, Émile Parisien, Clarence Penn, Jukka Perko, Yosuke Sato, Janis Siegel, Clark Terry, Tom Warrington, Kenny Washington.

Steinway Artist

In 2007, Jan Lundgren became the first Scandinavian jazz pianist to be named as a Steinway Artist by the famous piano company Steinway & Sons. The renowned company was founded in New York by Henry E. Steinway in 1853.

Critical reaction

Mark Gilbert of ''Jazz Journal'' has made the following observation of Lundgren: "He eganas a classically trained pianist and the practice is unmistakable in the pinpoint precision, lurid articulation, unerring melodic sense and apparently effortless range that characterise his piano playing; he quickly creates a sense of musical security and trust."

Commenting on Lundgren's 2011 album ''Together Again ...At The Jazz Bakery'', US jazz critic Doug Ramsey wrote: "Mr. Lundgren's clarity of execution matches the clarity of his ideas. He is at the top of his game in all of the elements of jazz pianism: touch, dynamics, harmonic imagination, swing, power and delicacy".

In his review of Lundgren's 2013 solo album ''Man in the Fog'', ''Jazz Journal'' critic Michael Tucker cited two tracks as "delicious examples of this wide-ranging pianist’s clarity of ideas and phrasing and simultaneous delicacy and purposiveness of touch."

In a September 2014 interview with Lundgren published by Marc Myers on his ''JazzWax'' blog, Myers said of the Trio's ''Flowers of Sendai'' album: "There’s enormous beauty here in chord voicings and how they resolve. It's impossible not to be moved by the delicacy and beauty."

Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival

Jan Lundgren is the Artistic Director of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, an annual jazz festival held in late July-early August. The festival was founded in 2010 by Jan Lundgren and Thomas Lantz.

Artists who have performed at the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival include: Cyrille Aimée, Monty Alexander, Jan Allan, Arild Andersen, Kenny Barron, Anders Bergcrantz, Stefano Bollani, Richard Bona, Fabrizio Bosso, Cristina Branco, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Deborah Brown, Vivian Buczek, Avishai Cohen (trumpeter), Avishai Cohen (bassist), Yamandu Costa, Lily Dahab, Lars Danielsson, Rosalia De Souza, Al Di Meola, Louis van Dijk, Dave Douglas, Elina Duni, Eliane Elias