Nils Landgren (born 15 February 1956) is a Swedish R&B,

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

, and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

player and singer. He is known as ''The Man with the Red Horn'' because he plays a red trombone.

Career

Nils Landgren Funk Unit - Leverkusener Jazztage 2017-5899

Landgren was born in

Degerfors Degerfors () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Degerfors Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden, with 7,160 inhabitants in 2010. Degerfors is the sixth-largest city in Örebro County. It is located at the southern shore of lake Mö ...

. Between 1972 and 1978 he studied classical trombone at the music college in

Karlstad Karlstad (, ) is the 20th-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city proper had 65,856 inhabitants in 2020 with 95,167 inhabitants ...

, Sweden, and continued his education at the university of

Arvika Arvika is a locality and the seat of Arvika Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 14,244 inhabitants in 2010. Geography The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord, a remnant of the time ...

. After meeting the Swedish folk-jazz pioneer

Bengt-Arne Wallin Bengt-Arne Wallin (13 July 1926 in Linköping – 23 November 2015) was a Swedish jazz composer, arranger, trumpeter, and flugelhorn player who played jazz influenced by Swedish traditional folk music. He also wrote film scores. Biography Betwe ...

and trombonist

Eje Thelin Eje Thelin (born Eilert Ove Thelin) (June 9, 1938 – May 18, 1990) was a Swedish trombonist. Thelin led his own quintet in 1961. From 1968 to 1972, he was on the faculty of the Music Academy in Graz, Austria. For the rest of the 1970s, he led hi ...

, Landgren was persuaded to move from his strictly classical studies to improvisation and to begin developing his own sound and approach to music. After his graduation, Landgren moved to Stockholm to work as a professional trombone player. He was soon touring with Swedish pop star

Björn Skifs Björn Nils Olof Skifs (; born 20 April 1947) is a Swedish singer, songwriter, actor, and screenwriter. Career Björn Skifs formed his first musical group, Slam Creepers, in 1962. Slam Creepers split in 1969 and Skifs went on to form a new ban ...

. Skifs's band,

Blue Swede Blue Swede were a Swedish rock band fronted by Björn Skifs which was active between the years 1973–1979. Blue Swede released two albums of cover versions, including a rendition of " Hooked on a Feeling", which brought them international char ...

, recorded a number one hit song in the U.S. pop charts with ''

Hooked on a Feeling "Hooked on a Feeling" is a 1968 pop song, written by Mark James and originally performed by B. J. Thomas. Thomas's version featured the sound of the electric sitar (played by Reggie Young) and reached No. 5 in 1969 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 10 ...

''. In 1981,

Thad Jones Thaddeus Joseph Jones (March 28, 1923 – August 20, 1986) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who has been called "one of the all-time greatest jazz trumpet soloists". Biography Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan, U ...

invited Landgren to join his big band, called Ball of Fire, as the lead trombonist. Landgren has worked in many genres: jazz, rock, soul, hip hop, and big band. By his own reckoning, he has contributed to at least 500 albums by such international groups and musicians as

ABBA ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's ...

, The Crusaders,

Eddie Harris Eddie Harris (October 20, 1934 – November 5, 1996) was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-k ...

Bernard "Pretty" Purdie Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie (born June 11, 1939) is an American drummer, and an influential R&B, soul and funk musician. He is known for his precise musical time keeping and his signature use of triplets against a half-time backbeat: the "Purdie ...

Wyclef Jean Nel Ust Wyclef Jean (; born October 17, 1969) is a Haitian rapper, musician, and actor. At the age of nine, Jean immigrated to the United States with his family. He first achieved fame as a member of the New Jersey hip hop group the Fugees, a ...

, and

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he help ...

. In 1983, he recorded and released his debut album as a solo artist, ''Planet Rock''. It was followed by ''Streetfighter'' (1984), ''You're My Number One'' (1985), ''Miles from Duke'' (1987) with Bengt-Arne Wallin, ''Chapter Two 1'' (1987), ''Chapter Two 2'' and ''Follow Your Heart'' (1989). Between 1985 and 1987, Landgren performed as an actor, singer, trombonist, and dancer in over 360 performances of ''SKÅL'', the Swedish play of the year. He has also appeared in several TV-films as an actor. In 1992, the first performances and recordings of the Nils Landgren Unit took place. Its breakthrough beyond Scandinavia occurred in 1994 at the

Jazz Baltica Jazz Baltica is a jazz festival which was started in 1990. Up until 2011 it was held every summer in Schloss Salzau (Salzau Palace) near Kiel, Germany, and the coast of the Baltic Sea. In 2009 the festival was directed by Bengt-Arne Wallin and in ...

Festival at Salzau, Germany. The group then became the Nils Landgren Funk Unit. The album ''Live in Stockholm'' was released that year and was the foundation for the collaboration with Siegfried Loch and his then nascent label

ACT Music ACT is a German record label founded in 1992 by Siegfried Loch. It is a division of ACT + Music Video founded by Loch and Annette Humpe in 1988. ACT started as a pop music label but folded soon after it started. Loch turned it into a jazz label, ...

. In 2006, Landgren organized a ''Christmas With My Friends'' concert in the Odensala Church in Stockholm which was recorded and released as an album. It became the first album in a series. Landgren has released a new ''Christmas With My Friends'' album accompanied by a Christmas season tour in Sweden or Germany every other year. In September 2007 Landgren opened the ''Jazz It Up''

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Jazz Festival with his band Funk Unit, playing a swing party, funk jazz show at the He Luting Concert Hall of the

Shanghai Conservatory of Music The Shanghai Conservatory of Music () was founded on November 27, 1927, as the first music institution of higher education in China. Its teachers and students have won awards at home and abroad, thus earning the conservatory the name "the crad ...

Awards and honors

* German Jazz Award for ''Paint It Blue'', 1997 * Tore Ehrling Prize, Swedish Society of Popular Composers, 2002 * Nils Landgren receives Sir George Martin Music Award, 2012 *

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

, 2019

Selected Discography

Solo albums

* 1983: ''Planet Rock'' (Frituna/ ACT) * 1984: ''Streetfighter'' (Frituna/ACT) * 1985: ''You're My Number One'' (Frituna/ACT) * 1990: ''Follow Your Heart'' (Caprice/ACT) * 1992: ''Red Horn'' (Caprice/ACT) * 1993: ''Ballads'' ( ACT, 1993/98) * 1996: ''Gotland'' (ACT) * 2001: ''The First Unit'' (ACT) * 2002: ''Sentimental Journey'' (ACT) * 2016: ''Some Other Time – A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein'' (ACT)

Nils Landgren Funk Unit

* 1995: ''Live in Stockholm'' (ACT, 1994–1995), with

Maceo Parker Maceo Parker (; born February 14, 1943) is an American funk and soul jazz saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s, Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s and Prince in the 2000s. Parker was a prominent soloist on many of B ...

* 1996: ''Paint It Blue'' (ACT) * 1998: ''Live in Montreux'' (ACT) * 1999: ''5000 Miles'' (1999) (ACT) * 2001: ''Fonk Da World'' (ACT) * 2004: ''Funky ABBA'' (ACT) * 2007: '' License to Funk'' ( ACT) * 2010: '' Funk for Life'' (ACT) * 2013: ''Teamwork'' (ACT) * 2014: ''Eternal Beauty'' (ACT) * 2017: ''Unbreakable'' (ACT) * 2021: ''Funk Is My Religion'' (ACT)

Collaborative works

* 1985: ''Skål!'' (Frituna/ACT), with Martin Ljung, Siw Malmkvist, Thomas Hellberg, Beatrice Järås, Örjan Ramberg & Sharon Dyall * 1987: ''Miles from Duke'' (Phono Suecia/ACT), with

* 1987: ''Chapter Two 1'' (ACT) with Johan Norberg * 1989: ''Chapter Two 2'' (ACT) with Johan Norberg * 1991: ''Untitled Sketches'' (ACT), with

Tomasz Stanko Tomasz is a Polish given name, the equivalent of Thomas in English. Notable people with the given name include: *Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish heavyweight boxer *Tomasz Arciszewski (1877–1955), Polish socialist politician and Prime Minist ...

* 1997: ''Swedish Folk Modern'' (ACT, 1997–98) with

Esbjörn Svensson Bror Fredrik "Esbjörn" Svensson (16 April 1964 – 14 June 2008) was a Swedish jazz pianist and founder of the jazz group Esbjörn Svensson Trio, commonly known as e.s.t. Svensson became one of Europe's most successful jazz musicians at the tur ...

* 2000: ''Layers of Light'' (ACT, 1999–2001), with Esbjörn Svensson * 2003: ''I Will Wait For You'' (ACT), with Rigmor Gustafsson & Flæskekvartetten * 2004: ''Close To You'' (ACT), with Rigmor Gustafsson & The Jacky Terrasson Trio – Celebrating

Dionne Warwick Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboards Hot 100 pop singles cha ...

* 2005: ''Creole Love Call'' (ACT), with

Joe Sample Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, the band which shortened its name to "The Crusaders" in 1971. He remained ...

Ray Parker Jr. Ray Erskine Parker Jr. (born May 1, 1954) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. As a solo performer, he wrote and performed the theme song to the 1984 film '' Ghostbusters''. Previously, Parker achieved a US top-10 h ...

* 2005: ''Salzau Music on the Water'' (ACT), with

Lars Danielsson Lars Danielsson (born 5 September 1958) is a Swedish jazz bassist, composer, and record producer. Biography Danielsson was born in Smålandsstenar, and was educated at the music conservatory in Gothenburg. He plays double bass, electric bass ...

& Christopher Dell * 2006: ''Shapes'' (ATC), with

Wolfgang Haffner Wolfgang Haffner (born 7 December 1965) is a German jazz drummer with an extensive discography.Discographyat Allmusic Discography * 2020 - Kind of Tango * 2019 – ''4WD'' (with Nils Landgren) * 2019 – ''The East End'' (with Bill Evans) * 20 ...

, feat. Landgren & Lars Danielsson * 2006: ''Christmas with My Friends'' (ACT) with

Viktoria Tolstoy Louise Viktoria Tolstoy (born 29 July 1974) is a Swedish jazz singer of Russian ancestry. She is the great-great-granddaughter of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and the daughter of Erik Kjellberg. Tolstoy was a regular studio guest in season one o ...

, Jeanette Köhn,

Sharon Dyall Sharon Birgitta Dyall (born 28 December 1962) is a Swedish singer, actress and voice actress. She became famous in the late 1980s when she acted in the SVT TV series ''Varuhuset''. She has since become known as a singer of soul and jazz music a ...

, Ida Sandlund et al. * 2008: ''Acoustic Shapes'' (ACT), with Wolfgang Haffner, feat. Landgren & Hubert Nuss * 2008: ''Christmas with My Friends II'' (ACT), with Jeanette Köhn, Jessica Pilnäs, Sharon Dyall, Ida Sand, Jonas Knutsson, Johan Norberg &

Eva Kruse Eva Kruse (born 16 October 1978) is a German jazz musician (upright bass, bass guitar) and composer. Biography Kruse was raised in Brunsbek in Schleswig-Holstein. In her childhood and youth, she received eleven years of classical piano lesson ...

* 2009: ''Chapter Two'' (ACT), with Johan Norberg * 2011: ''The Moon, the Stars and You'' (ACT), with

Richard Galliano Richard Galliano (born 12 December 1950, Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes) is a French accordionist of Italian heritage. Allmusic biography/ref> Biography He was drawn to music at an early age, starting with the accordion at 4, influenced by his father ...

, Joe Sample,

Michael Wollny Michael Wollny (born 25 May 1978) is a German jazz pianist and a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig. He has played with international musicians including Joachim Kühn, Tamar Halperin, Marius Neset, Andreas Schaerer, Ém ...

, Rasmus Kihlberg,

Steve Gadd Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945) is an American drummer, percussionist, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the ''Modern D ...

and

Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra ( sv, Kungliga Filharmonikerna or , literal translations, "Royal Philharmonic" or "Royal Philharmonic Orchestra") is a Swedish orchestra based in Stockholm. Its principal venue is the Konserthuset. His ...

* 2012: ''Christmas with My Friends III'' (ACT), with

, Jonas Knutsson, Jeanette Köhn,

, Jessica Pilnäs,

Ida Sand Ida Kristina Sand (born 5 November 1977) is a Swedish jazz singer and pianist. Ida Sand was born in Stockholm, and studied music at Högskolan för scen och musik in University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs univ ...

, and

Johan Norberg Johan Norberg (; born 27 August 1973) is a Swedish author and historian of ideas, devoted to promoting economic globalization and what he describes as classical liberal positions. He is arguably most known as the author of '' In Defense of Global ...

* 2014: ''Christmas with My Friends IV'' (ACT), with Jonas Knutsson, Johan Norberg, Jeanette Köhn, Jessica Pilnäs, Sharon Dyall, Eva Kruse and Ida Sand * 2016: ''Christmas with My Friends V'' (ACT), with Jonas Knutsson, Johan Norberg, Jeanette Köhn, Jessica Pilnäs, Sharon Dyall, Eva Kruse and Ida Sand * 2016: ''Christmas with My Friends Jubilee Collection'' * 2018: ''Christmas with My Friends VI'' (ACT), with Jonas Knutsson, Johan Norberg, Jeanette Köhn, Jessica Pilnäs, Sharon Dyall, Eva Kruse and Ida Sand * 2020: ''Christmas with My Friends VII'' (ACT), with Jonas Knutsson, Johan Norberg, Jeanette Köhn, Jessica Pilnäs, Sharon Dyall, Eva Kruse and Ida Sand

References

External links

*http://www.nilslandgren.com/ *http://www.funkforlife.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Landgren, Nils 1956 births Living people Swedish jazz musicians ACT Music artists Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Swedish jazz trombonists