Lennart Axelsson (born 11 July 1941) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

trumpet player who has spent a good part of his career in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Biography

Born and raised in Sweden, he began his career in a Swedish armed forces band. Disillusioned with military life, he quit to become a full-time musician, playing with various jazz bands in Sweden. In the early 1970s, he moved to

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

, Switzerland to take a job in the big band of Swiss radio station

Schweizer Radio DRS Schweizer Radio: Radio der deutschen und rätoromanischen Schweiz (SR DRS; "Swiss Radio: Radio of the German and Romansh Switzerland") was a company of SRG SSR which operated the public German-language radio stations of Switzerland from 1931 u ...

. In 1974, he joined the

James Last Orchestra The James Last Orchestra was a German/multinational big-band orchestra. The orchestra was established in 1964 as a studio orchestra, led by jazz musician Hans Last. The orchestra started touring in 1968 and has been very popular worldwide. From 1 ...

. He was one of the featured trumpet soloists on Last's 1975 album ''In The Mood For Trumpets'', along with

Rick Kiefer Rick Kiefer (born 1939) is an American trumpet player who has spent most of his career as a professional musician in Germany. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he first attracted notice in the early 1960s as a member of the Maynard Ferguson big ...

and

Ack van Rooyen Ack van Rooyen (1 January 1930, The Hague – 18 November 2021) was a Dutch jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist. He was the brother of Jerry van Rooyen. Van Rooyen began playing with a military band as a teenager, touring bases in Indonesia. He the ...

; this was notable as Last's record company

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

usually did not credit the individual personnel on Last's studio recordings. In 1979, Axelsson left the Last band and joined the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, or North German Radio) big band, where he eventually became the featured trumpet soloist. He retired from the NDR band in 2005.Bob Willox, "James Last", 1975

References

1941 births Living people Swedish male musicians {{Sweden-musician-stub