I’m back in Austria after my visit to Sweden and the gig at New Sound Made festival. I really enjoyed to be home and see all friends again, and to hear a lot of them at the festival, there were quite a few really nice musical moments during the three days.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, but although the air was cold, it still was outweighed by the warm atmosphere of the festival, both among the musicians and the audience.

Our gig with Blue Corners was good, unfortunately I myself had a bit of a fever and was pretty dizzy during the gig, and since we were playing outside in the freezing cold combined with a pretty bad stage sound, the conditions could have been better.

Despite this we still had a good time playing and came up with some special moments. Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to shorten out program a bit, we did three tunes that got a bit longer than planned, and had to finish everything off with a very shortened version of one of the bandleader Morgan’s beautiful ballads, and take our planned last number out.

Not a bad decision though, Morgan featured this ballad beautifully and it felt good finishing our set off this way, especially since the rest of the concert became pretty powerful, and as an effect of the bad stage sound also became a bit unvaried dynamically.

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It was fun to see how fast I got into the “normal life” again, except for the fact that I tended to think a bit more in English and German this time, answering with yeah and greeting people with hallo! on first impulse.

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I missed Zlatan’s big show in the Serie A-finals, It started fifteen minutes after I boarded the plane. I’m definitely not missing his show in Euro 2008. Is that gold I smell?

Tomorrow at 11:35 I’m taking off from Vienna International Airport, and 2 hours and 25 minutes later I’m landing in Stockholm. I can’t wait, I’m really looking forward to going home this time, I haven’t been in Sweden since Christmas.

On Wednesday New Sound Made Festival starts and runs until Friday. We’re playing with Blue Corners on the big outside stage at 18.50 on Friday. Don’t miss it!

I’m going high-tech in this post and throw in two pictures from a gig with Blue Corners at Jazzclub Fasching last year. Now I only have to find my passport and I’m ready to go.

I’m flying home to Sweden to play with Blue Corners at the New Sound Made Festival, which takes place in Stockholm the 14th to 16th of May.

I’m really looking forward to it, the band is really fun to play with and the festival is great!

3 days, 3 stages, 45 really cool bands, and everything totally free of charge! 2008 is the third year of the festival and since it started in 2006 it’s been a total success every time.

This is the perfect opportunity to hear the latest from the Swedish Jazz, Pop and Impro scene, and there’s really something for everyone, the mixture of different music is bigger than I’ve ever experienced on another festival. This really is an event you shouldn’t miss!

Check it out at myspace.com/newsoundmade and kmh.se/nsm

For some more information about the festival, here’s a summary I wrote over My New Sound Made 2007.

New Sound Made festival is over for this year and I have to say it was a total success! I hope to get hold of some pictures to upload here, if you sit on any and feel like sharing it, you are more than welcome to send me an email.

Morgan Andersson Blue Corners were the first band I played with and who also started the whole festival up. It became a bit stressful before the gig, I had a rehearsal just before and had to eat, do the sound check, discuss set list and so on, all at the same time. It turned out good though! The gig felt nice even if it was a bit unusual to play outside, the sound of the group became a bit different. Also from a saxophone players point of view it was a bit hard, it was pretty cold outside which makes the pitch go down when you don’t play and go up when you play (Cold saxophone = air flows slower, which results in lower pitch, warm saxophone = faster airflow, higher pitch). Amazing singer Maria Andersson joined us for a song which was really nice. We hadn’t done this song with Maria before and we decided while we played that Maria and I should improvise over it together, which felt really good! There’s always a certain focus in a group when no one really knows what will happened and something unexpected occurs. Great!

Fabulous Five’s gig continued my Wednesday. Our concert was perhaps not the best one we’ve ever done, but it still felt good. We tried a new song by Ludwig which is something of a pophit. It turned out really well, fun to vary the concept and find new ways to approach a song. Before this gig we had a little break and it felt like a good start of the series of gigs we’re having now (Great Jazz Club in Linköping 14/5, Jazzclub Fasching in Stockholm 24/5 and the Culture House of Trelleborg 30/5).

Soul & Funk-band Spiceadelic became my Wednesdays last gig, and a great ending! 13 people on stage, a feel like partying-audience and one hell of a show! Also a big thank you to Erik Metall who took care of the sound on the big stage where we played. Really good stage sound, it’s not always that you as a horn player in a situation like that actually hear exactly what you play, it was great!

Drummer Carl Åberg’s group Start opened my festival Thursday up. Looking at the group I think we did a good gig, but I’m not particularly pleased with my own contribution. After three gigs on Wednesday it felt like my inspiration was a bit low, I felt like I was repeating myself and played the same stuff all the time. Therefore I became a bit tensed and tried to force something creative and fresh, with the opposite effect that the musical flow instead gets clogged. This probably will be something I always have to work with, but my hope is that it will be easier to find that creative state I always want to be in the more I play.

Very nice group Alda, lead by singer Carolina Wallin Peréz, where Thursday’s second gig. Usually the Gothenburg-based saxophone player Niklas Persson plays there, but he couldn’t make it to this gig, so I substituted for him. Carolina writes some really beautiful music for an exciting setting: Voice, vibraphone, tenor sax, alto sax, baryton sax/bass clarinet/clarinet and trumpet. The group has a very large dynamic range and the music can be both solid and fragile. It felt challenging and fun to play and try to contribute with something nice (or ugly) to the music. I felt I had a bit of hard time to fully find the focus during the concert, especially since it was the first time i played live with them. I always find rehearsals and concerts very different and it doesn’t matter how much you have rehearsed, the musical process within a piece of music really starts first when you play it live. Afterwards it still felt like it was a nice concert, made me feel good!

Erik Eriksson sextett became Thursdays third and last gig, and also the last thing I did during New Sound Made (except for enjoying all the other good music from all the other bands!). We played our premiere gig on Jazzclub Fasching in February and this was our second one. Erik writes incredibly nice and original music that are a blast to play. The group he’s put together is also a very nice gang and everyone really contributes with something special to the music. The concert was a great finish for me, the whole band played unbelievably inspired and we had the audience with us. The atmosphere was on top!

Here you can listen and find more info about some of the groups:
Fabulous Five, Erik Eriksson sextett, Alda