Scandinavia’s great choral tradition, its marching bands, the excellent music colleges: all valid factors encouraging the cornucopia of good jazz singers that has been steadily emerging from this sparsely populated region in Europe since the 1960’s. Back then however, singers who wished to be successful on the continent had to twist over backwards: Gitte Haenning, Wencke Myrrhe, Siw Malmquist, Bibi Johns or Alice Babs, all of them serious jazz singers at home, they became schlager stars in Germany. Others like Karin Krog, Lill Lindfors or Monica Zetterlund stayed true to jazz and were part of the first flowering of the music up north, but had to give up on a real commercial breakthrough. 

Today’s Scandinavian singers no longer need to compromise on substance. The renaissance in jazz singing has not only swept singers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway in its wake, it has -to a large extent - been initiated by them. This new generation grew up with MTV and the Grand Prix d’Eurovision, with ABBA and Björk, with chanson, funk, hip-hop and drum’n’bass; it is a generation more open to the world and its diverse musical styles. Many of them, among them Silje Nergaard, Rebekka Bakken or Rigmor Gustafsson are not only remotely influenced by the melting pot America, but have spent their formative years there. 

”An excellent collection and a superb way into a very particular Scandinavian way with jazz-derived singing.”

MOJO (UK)