Nils Landgren - Eternal Beauty (2014)

Not only the trombonist Nils Landgren has built up an enormous fan base over the decades with his Funk Unit, with big bands and alongside the greats of jazz music so has the vocalist Nils Landgren. His clear, throaty and yet mellow voice is very distinctive, and perfect for ballads. Apart from on his Christmas anthology Christmas With My friends it could also be admired on The Moon, The Stars And You that came out two years ago. What is more, Landgren put together a rhythm section here that understood each other intuitively. Alongside his companion of many years Lars Danielsson on the bass and cello, and the Viktoria Tolstoy drummer Rasmus Kihlberg, he also added Michael Wollny as a consummate sensitive piano accompanist to the mix. It is a criterion that most of the songs on "Eternal Beauty" will certainly also meet for many listeners, from George Harrison's Isn't It A Pity to Mr. Mister's Broken Wings on through to We don't Need Another Hero made popular by Tina Turner. And not just the hits adapted from pop, no, also intelligent jazz ballads the likes of ;One More Angel from the jazz bassist John Patitucci and Another Kind Of Blue by the New York-based German guitarist Torsten de Winkel. Michael Wollny wrote the title track together with Eva Svensson, Esbjörn Svensson's widow, and the whole album Eternal Beauty is an homage to Esbjörn.