Swedish jazz hero "Red Horn Nils" - he plays a red trombone - turned his Shanghai Conservatory of Music concert into a jazz party. He says his combination of funky jazz and melodic Swedish jazz is body music.
With his snazzy red Yamaha trombone, shining earrings and passionate performance, pioneer Swedish jazz musician "Red Horn Nils," Nils Landgren, drove the audience crazy for his blend of funky jazz and melodic Swedish jazz.
That's what happened this week during Landgren's latest appearance in Shanghai, at the local Conservatory of Music, where the concert hall performance was turned into a jazz party.
Landgren teamed up with his Funk Unit and two jazz musicians from the conservatory during the Jazz It Up Festival that runs through tomorrow night.
"For me, jazz is more of a body music than an intellectual one," says Landgren. "We want to speak to people's bodies. If you can move with our music, feel the music with your body, then you get the message."
Landgren writes most of his own music, combining strong melodic and rhythmic elements while keeping it simple. He improvises much more than most funk bands and features a bigger jazz element.
People keep asking him why he chose to put jazz into funk. His answer is simple: "I play it because I love it. We all do. I have been doing it for years."
Taking up classical trumpet at the age of 13, he changed from a strict classical player to an improviser when he was 19 years old. At 51, he's still going strong, energetic and creative.
Jazz is a dynamic art form in constant change, musicians improvise and anything can be an inspiration. Classical music is much more limited and score-bound, despite the possibility of interpretation.
"Jazz is a very personal language," says Landgren. "We all know the language, yet everyone speaks in their own dialect, show their own personality."
Musicians from Funk Unit never perform from a score. "We know the music by heart, and we always do the interpretation from what we feel that night," says Landgren.
Landgren set up his Funk Unit in 1981, and he has cooperated with more than 160 musicians all over the world. "Jazz musicians nowadays are very free-thinking people. They are continuously exploring new ways to play," he says.
And today, blending different music styles is trendier than ever. Landgren is a pioneer in Sweden for blending Swedish folk music into jazz performance. Critics say he has elevated Swedish folk music to the level of subdued works of art.
Jazz and church music shaped Landgren's childhood. His steel-worker father was an amateur trumpet player, who took American jazz into the family home. It was through jazz records that Landgren first got acquainted with jazz.
However, Landgren's grandfather, a priest, forbade his son to play jazz. Yet Landgren's father didn't give up his horn. Now at age 90, he is still playing his trumpet.
"I will probably play my red horn too until I am old," says Landgren. "It's the best thing in the world to be on stage, and see the reaction of the audience."
Landgren, an inexhaustible performer, has played all over the world, savoring different cultures.
"My constant ongoing inspiration comes from those travel experiences," says Landgren, who travels almost 250 days a year. "I do not need to live in a specific place, I am always somewhere else."
Jazz It Up Festival
Date: through September 29
Address: 20 Fenyang Rd
(Shanghai Daily September 28, 2007)
