I was born in 1962 in Sundsvall, a small town in northern Sweden.
My father, an amateur musician, taught me to play the saxophone when I was just a child.
I was quick to learn and soon had a reputation as a local prodigy.
At the age of 14 I started taking bass lessons,
but the saxophone was still my main instrument.
In 1978 I was invited as a soloist to the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland,
and was invited back the following two years as well.
At Pori I had the opportunity to meet and work with
several internationally recognized jazz musicians,
including Ted Curson and Frank Foster.
I performed mainly as a saxophonist, but I did play one concert as a bass player,
with accordionist Art Van Damme.
In 1978 I began studies at Kapellsbergs Musikskola in Härnösand.
This was a small school, unable to provide a qualified education on the saxophone.
They didn’t have a bass teacher either but I took bass lessons
from the cello teacher Lars Blomberg,
who imparted a great deal of enthusiasm and taught me some special bowing techniques.
So I went to school for the saxophone and wound up a bass player.
In 1980 I was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm as double-bass student,
and there I got a real bass teacher, and one with a very good reputation,
Professor Thorwald Fredin.
I studied classical music at the school but also played jazz on the side.
During my years in Härnösand I became friends with pianist Arne Forsén,
who also came to Stockholm to study at that time.
In 1983 we began playing with the South African drummer Gilbert Matthews,
forming a band called Brus Trio.
With this band we developed a style of our own in contemporary jazz
(and the band is still working).
Arne Forsén and I became friends with a couple of folk musicians,
violinist Sven Ahlbeck and vocalist Susanne Rosenberg, who were studying at the Academy,
and with them formed the folk music group Kvickrot, which became quite successful in its time.
I finished my studies in 1984 and worked as a theatre musician in between engagements
with Brus Trio and Kvickrot.
In 1984 came the first Brus Trio LP, Before Coffee (Dragon DRLP 62),
and in 1987 the Kvickrot album Ogräs (Siljum BGS 8702).
These LPs have not yet been issued on CD.
In 1988, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra began using me
as an extra musician from time to time,
and in 1991 I auditioned and succeeded in winning a steady job.
Brus Trio made a couple of tours behind the iron curtain.
We were a particular smash hit at the Bratislava Jazz Festival in 1988.
We also made a trip to the jazz festival in Abakahn, in remote Siberia,
near the Mongolian border, in 1989.
Brus Trio also worked with a number of internationally recognized musicians,
and made albums with John Tchichai, Charles Tyler and Roscoe Mitchell.
(See my discography for details.)
In 1990 I played at the Chicago Jazz Festival with drummer Bengt Berger
and his band Chapter Seven.
I have also worked extensively with free improvising and had a friend in the legendary
Bengt ”Frippe” Nordström, who among other things produced the first recordings of
Albert Ayler. I was a member of his band Miljövårdsverket and played several concerts
and a radio broadcast with him.
I have also played in so-called ad hoc groups with musicians including
Paul Lovens, harri Sjöström, Mats Gustavsson, Joel Futterman, Robert Adkin
and many others.
The Swedish trumpeter Bengt Ernryd brought me in on his band Explorer
(whose name celebrates both the adventure of new discovery,
and a particular brand of vodka).
The other members of that band were Kjell Westling on soprano sax and bass clarinet,
and Bengt Berger on drums.
We played a couple of festivals and a radio broadcast before the band fell apart.
No recording of this band was ever released.
Pianist Mikael Jöback brought me in on his band Tango Libre,
which also included violinist Anna Lindal, Sven Åberg on guitar,
and Petri Ikkelä on bandoneon.
This band did several concert tours including one with the famous Argentine tango singer
Heydée Alba.
Tango Libre is still working today but I am no longer a member.
No recordings have been released from my tenure with the band.
In 1994, at a jam session at Jazzclub Fasching in Stockholm,
I met the American jazz guitarist Andy Fite (who is also a singer and a songwriter),
who had recently moved to Sweden with his Swedish wife, pianist Boel Dirke.
We started up a jam session at Café Aguéli in Stockholm and called it No Paper Jam.
It’s still happening once a month and is a very popular event with
the relatively few people who know about it.
And then there is the Andy Fite Trio, with myself and Andy, and Sebastian Voegler on drums.
I have also worked quite a bit with the legendary drummer Sune Spångberg,
mostly with Arne Forsén on piano. Sune is legendary
in part because as a youngster he played at the great Golden Circle club with,
among others, Bud Powell. He is also on Albert Ayler’s first recording.
One record has got released with Sune Spångberg Trio,
Two absent friends (Dragon DRCD 316):
I have also played with the American pianist Freddie Redd during
a period when he was living in Stockholm.
And I work with pianist Lisa Ullen in two different bands.
Re-Surge is a group for contemporary classical music, mostly compositions of Lars Bröndum,
who also plays in the band.
The band consists of Jonna Sandell on violin, Lisa Ullen on piano,
Lars Bröndum on acoustic guitar and live electronics, and me on bass.
We combine chamber music with improvisation and electronics.
The other is the Lisa Ullen Quartet, which plays a kind of free jazz
without arrangements or compositions of any kind.
Apart from Lisa on piano and me on bass,
the members are Mats Äleklint on trombone and Andreas Axelsson on drums.
One CD has been released, on the Disorder label (CD001).
I’m also a member of Sigmund Freud’s Mothers, a band paying tribute to Charles Mingus,
led by saxophonist Lars Gulliksson.
Other members are Roland Kejser on saxophones, Karl Olandersson on trumpet,
Klas jervfors on trombone, Matti Ollikainen on piano, and Gilbert Matthews on drums.
One CD has been released on BReathING maCHine Production (BNCD001).
And finally, there is the recently formed string orchestra for folk music,
Bowing 9, consisting of 9 string players and performing pieces in the Swedish folk music style,
composed by its members, who include vioinists Mia Gustafsson, Sven Ahlbeck, Lars Warnstad,
Jonas Åkerlund and Olof Misgeld, violists Mikael Marin and Andrian Jones, cellist Leo Svensson,
and myself.