A weblog in English and Dutch about jazz and related music, record collecting and other music projects originally created by Hans Koert.|Een webblog in het Engels en het Nederlands over jazz, jazz-verwante muziek, platen verzamelen en verrassende projecten, oorspronkelijk opgezet door Hans Koert.
One of Sweden's remarkable jazz ensembles of the late 1930s and early 1940s was the string swing quintet named Svenska Hotkvintetten. The quintet was formed 1939, initially modeled after The Quintet of Hot Club of France (QHCF) that had visited Sweden and performed in Stockholm during February that year. The two concerts by QHCF were attended by an enthusiastic audience, among the crowd also some young Swedish musicians, who were thrilled by the string wizardry of Django & co.. Shortly after this event violinist Emil Iwring (1912-1999) took the initative in founding Svenska Hotkvintetten, the members carefully handpicked from several orchestras. Emil Iwring was born in Stockholm and started playing when he was eight years old. He intended to become a concert violinist but became instead a dance, jazz and entertainment musician, and he played his first job in 1926. He was soon considered a supreme jazz violinist, i.e. Svend Asmussen took a ride on his bike from Copenhagen to Stockholm in 1936 just to hear Iwring play a live performance.
Svenska Hotkvintetten (c. 1940)
Besides Emil Iwring on violin Svenska Hotkvintetten consisted of Sven Stiberg on lead guitar, Folke Eriksberg and Kalle Löhr on rhythm guitar and Roland Bengsson on double bass. As the members already were engaged in other jobs, the quintet mainly became a studio recording ensemble during its shortlived time from 1939-41 and frequently had changing members in the rhythm section. The quintet recorded about 40 sides for Columbia during this period, here's an example of the ensemble's version of string swing from 1940
Some years ago the Swedish label Dragon Records released a CD (DRCD 223) featuring 27 sides recorded by Svenska Hotkvintetten 1939-41; the audio has since been uploaded at YouTube, here
Emil Iwring and his orchestra (1940s)
After Svenska Hotkvintetten had disbanded in the fall of 1941, violinist Emil Iwring formed his own orchestra which toured Sweden and made records for Columbia, the repertoire was both popular music and jazz - a discographical overview of the orchestra's recordings in the 40's is available here
Below is inserted a couple of examples of the orchestra's jazz recordings - first the tune Friday The 13th from March 1942
In February 1943, the orchestra recorded Hot Love, a tune composed by Emil Iwring, who contributes both hot violin and vocals
Emil Iwring continued playing with his own ensemble in the 1950s and 1960s and also had radio work for several years besides touring Sweden and also performed on board cruise liners between Sweden and USA. He had a come-back as a regular jazz violinist in 1980 with the release of a LP titled Still Going String and he recorded two more LPs in the 1980s. One of them was re-issued by Four Leaf Clover Records as a mp3 download-only CD titled Nya Svenska Hotkvintetten in 2013, shown below
Emil Iwring, Nya Svenska Hotkvintetten FLCCD 198
Emil Iwring leads the quintet, contributing great violin playing throughout the eleven tracks in a repertoire of both hot and sweet tunes from the standard jazz book and a couple of examples of popular contemporary music including his own Så skimmanda var aldrig havet. Iwring is accompanied by very competent musicians: Rune Gustafson and Lennart Nylén are sharing solo lead guitar, Carl-Erik Holmquist on rhythm guitar and Sture Åkerberg on double bass. Download of the music in mp3 format may be purchased here and here
Emil Iwring, TV 1988 (YouTube still photo)
In 1988, Swedish television produced a live interview with and performance by Emil Iwring, a tribute to his importance as a jazz violinist in Sweden. The TV performance has been uploaded in two parts at You Tube and is accessible here and here
Sveriges Hot Six, Hot Love (LP, 1980)
The importance of the string swing tradition initiated by Emil Iwring and Svenska Hotkvintetten has been acknowleged by other musicians in Sweden. The above shown LP featuring a pick-up ensemble named Sveriges Hot Six was recorded 1979 for the Gazell label, a division of Sonet Grammofon. The title Hot Love traces back to Emil Iwring's tune with the same title and there are ten more tunes at the LP which originally were recorded by other significant Swedish jazz musicians of the swing era here arranged for a string swing sextet consisting of Anders Dahl (v), Lennart Nylén and John Kongshaug sharing lead solo guitar, Staffan Broms (rhythm guitar), Sture Nordin (b) and Jan Nyman(d). Last year the LP was reissued as a CD by Hot Club Records of Norway as volume two in the label's reissue series of recordings featuring John Kongshaug
John Kongshaug, Sweden's Hot Six (2015) (HCR-442)
The shown CD was produced with permission and assistance by John Kongshaug's son, John-Ola Kongshaug, and it may be purchased as download here and here - Hot Club Records has uploaded the full audio of the album at YouTube including great still footage from John Kongshaug's career, accessible here
To end this, here's a video uploaded by John-Ola Kongshaug featuring his father John Kongshaugwith Sweden's Hot Six playing the tunes Hot Love by Emil Iwring and Pan Pipe Riff by Swedish tenor sax pioneer Carl-Henrik Norin
The guitar emerged as a distinct solo voice in jazz with the invention of the electric pickup and amplification. The pioneering work of electric amplification evolved in the USA during the 1930s, but it was not until Charlie Christian's entrance at the jazz scene late 1930s that the electric/amplified guitar became a common instrument among jazz guitarists. Charlie Christian paved the way and sat the direction for future jazz guitar playing - also outside the US. - In Scandinavia, pioneer jazz guitarists like Robert Normann, Sven Stiberg, Helge Jacobsen a.o. started to use the electric/amplified guitar already in the early 1940's, but due to WWII when all countries in Scandinavia except Sweden were occupied by the German nazi regime, the evolution of electric jazz guitar playing was delayed compared to the movement in the USA. During WWII, Jazz in general was banned in occupied parts of Scandinavia following official decretes from the nazi regime, but it was practised anyway as a sort of 'underground' movement and only accepted as part of a restricted and limited entertainment business. Moreover, jazz musicians in Scandinavia had very limited access to new records, information and inspiration from the outside world. Only Sweden - due to its neutrality - was able to import new records from USA and GB with great difficulty and delay. These circumstances meant that genuine knowledge of the evolvment of be bop and contemporary jazz in the USA was delayed in Scandinavia, only after WWII had ended in 1945 a general change in the conseption of jazz emerged late 1940s and early 1950s. A pioneer jazz guitarist of this post-WWII Scandinavian generation of musicians that incorporated the new sound of jazz from the USA was John Kongshaug.
John Kongshaug (still photo copied from YouTube)
According to the scarce info I have available, John Kongshaug (1922-1995) was born in Trondheim, Norway and started his professional career in 1942. By the end of the 1940s he was one of the leading guitar solists in Norway. In 1959 he moved to Sweden, where he played with notable reed players Carl-Henrik Norin, Bjarne Nerem, Arne Domnérus and in the orchestras at the Opera and the Stockholm Philharmonic. Later he was a sideman much in demand and played with numerous local as well as international artists. As a consequence, due to his extensive work as a sideman, he never followed his own jazz career, nevertheless he ranks as a Scandinavian modern jazz guitar pioneer who was at par with some of the best jazz musicians in his time. Earlier this year Hot Club Records of Norway released a CD with a selction of Kongshaug's recordings from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s produced by Jon Larsen in coporation with Kongshaug's son, Jan Erik Kongshaug.
CD front, Hot Club Records, HCR 439
The CD has 26 tracks and is a somewhat mixed bag of regular jazz and popular music, however, the CD takes off with a session from December 1954 featuring a Modern Swing Group, a sextet with NOrwegian musicians. Kongshaug is the lead guitarist and has great solo work in a tune named 'Slappfisken' which shows off that he has adopted modern harmony and be bop influence in his fluent playing
From about the same time the sextet also recorded a bop influenced version of the swing standard 'Honeysuckle Rose', again Kongshaug is showing off inspired solowork
In the late 1950s John Kongshaug began experimenting with multi-track recording of his guitar, probably inspired by similar recordings by Les Paul and George Barnes, the CD has several examples of this field of Kongshaug's output. One of the earliest attempts was a recording of 'Lullaby Of Birdland' in April 1958
From about the same time Kongshaug recorded his own samba 'Satelitten' using multi-track technique and applying double speed in the overdubbed tracks
The last five tracks of the CD again feature John Kongshaug in a regular jazz context, two tracks have him in interplay with fellow guitarist Barney Kessel and show off his adoption of modern jazz guitar playing, here in the standard 'Tea For Two'
The last three tracks of the CD have John Kongshaug in interplay with his son, Jan Erik Kongshaug, who is also a guitar player and sound engineer; an example of their interplay is the recording of 'Delauney's Dilemma'
The CD featuring John Kongshaug is available for purchase as download from Hot Club Records, here, and you have the opportunity to listen to the full album at YouTube with nice still footage uploaded by Hot Club Records, here. - Still photos of John Kongshaug used in this entry are copied from the uploaded YouTube video by HCR.
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