4. Bengt NordströmNatural Music
This Swedish saxophonist is perhaps the least well known artist in your list, but I understand he was a transformative force on the Scandinavian jazz scene, producing Albert Ayler’s first album, and recording some of the first solo saxophone albums, of which this is one. He was also your mentor as a young player?
Yeah, it’s a long story. When I moved down from Lapland to Stockholm when I was 19, I didn’t know anyone in town. I had just moved down to play music and they were quite difficult times, working in a factory for a couple of years and practising in the wardrobe, all the classic shit. Bengt was one of the first musicians on the scene that I met and he was really curious. We played together a lot, talked a lot and he was quite a character. But the fact is that he was producing that first Albert Ayler record in ’62 [Something Different]. Ayler lived for one year in Stockholm and he changed Bengt completely. Bengt played the saxophone and he started to experiment with solo saxophone improvisations. Just as I couldn’t find people to play with, he couldn’t find people to play with in the 60s either. So most of the recordings he made on his tape machine are solo music. He inherited some money from his aunt, so he bought saxophones and he bought a tape machine, recorded himself, went to a pressing plant and made 5 copies, 10, 20 max. Like test pressings. And then he put all the records in a cover, or some without a cover, and made them with hand stamps or hand-writing. It’s like a collectors nightmare, or dream! Natural Music: he made a record in 200 copies with that cover, but it’s like 35 different metal masters. The tapes are long gone, so only the vinyl and the metal masters still exist. And he combined them in different ways, so it’s impossible to keep track. But I’m trying to keep track and I have all the material, so in the future there will be some kind of box with all his solo music. What he did in ’62, ’63 with solo saxophone music is completely unique, like no-one else on the planet. This is seven, eight years before [Anthony] Braxton [For Alto], you know. Free improvised music in the early 60s and the music is absolutely amazing, fantastic. And in the same way, like PJ Harvey, it’s naked, it’s almost too private. It’s almost scary to hear it. He can take a half minute break and then he continues, it’s a very interesting journey. I see it as my responsibility, my obligation to present this music, somehow. It’s spectacular.
