Lars Erstrand Trio & Quartet With Guests - The "Complete" Songs (2005)

The trio comprises, besides Lars himself, one of Sweden's absolutely best new jazz pianist, Jan Lundgren. On double bass is another of Sweden's most sought after musicians, Hans Backenroth. On drums we have Leif îGusî Dahlberg who has been playing with Lars Erstrand on several other Opus 3 albums.
As soloists we have the pleasure to present Antii Sarpila from Finland on tenor and soprano saxophone on 3 tracks, Bertil Fernqvist on electric guitar on 2 tracks and finally Lasse Törnqvist on cornet, also on 2 tracks.
To Quote Lars:
Perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my 50 years of playing, as a vibraphonist is the awareness of the enormous quality and variety of the songs composed in what is commonly called 'îThe Great Swing Era.
For more than 30 years I had the privilege and pleasure of playing with the outstanding Swedish clarinettist Ove Lind, whose life ended at all too early an age. One of the things about Ove was his enormous repertoire, not only of the songs but also the verses, which were so very often not recorded at this time. He maintained that a song is not really complete without the verse and I, and many other musicians, really agree that he has a point.
A verse is like a prologue, where the words of the lyrics give background to the story, which is the main theme of the chorus. Musically it can be a separate entity in itself and comprise a further composition of beauty.