Swedish jazz artists Jan Lundgren (left) and Nils Landgren released a new duo album, Kristallen, on January 10, 2020. (Photos by Steven Haberland) The word word “kristallen” means translucence and clarity, but it also refers to refractions that occur when changing light reveals minute color variations. The duets between Swedish trombonist-vocalist Nils Landgren and pianist
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The 53-year-old Lundgren and the 64-year-old Landgren had casually known each other for about a decade when they worked together on Landgren and Janis Siegel’s Leonard Bernstein tribute album, Some Other Time (ACT 2016). “It went so well,” Lundgren says, “that we said we have to do a project together. The kristallen album went so well that we’ve booked a little concert tour. Last night was the first concert, and it was just like we’d been playing night-after-night for a long time. The communication was almost instantaneous.”
He began piano lessons at five, and Lundgren was immersed in classical training when he heard his first jazz recording at age 15. “It was the Oscar Peterson Trio playing ‘Night Train,’” Lundgren remembers. “I loved everything about it—the rhythm, the sound of the trio, and most of all the playing. When I learned that they were improvising, I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘How can this be?’ Improvisation was a big mysterium to me. And that day changed my life forever.”
The Peterson epiphany set him in search of records by Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, and the whole of the jazz piano tradition. “I thought the folk-influenced pop music was too simple,” Lundgren points out. “Jazz met my expectation for high art.” 
He was a serious young man, with little interest in the popular music of the day. “We have our Swedish folk songs,” Lundgren clarifies, “and they’re the basis for so much of our music. But they were too simple for my taste. Jazz met my expectation for high art.”
As a young player, he worked with some of the Swedish jazz legends like alto saxophonist and clarinetist Arne Domnerus. “He was one of the big players,” Lundgren says, “along with pianists Jan Johnasson and Bengt Hallberg.” Lundberg was recently awarded a coveted national music prize, the Ellen and Sven Asmussen Award, named for the relentlessly swinging jazz violin legend and his wife. “That means a lot to me,” Lundgren notes, “because Sven was one of the great ones.”
The pianist isn’t shy about accolades for his collaborator. “Nils is the complete musician,” Lundgren declares. “As a trombonist, composer, arranger, and a fine singer with an unbelievable ear. I’m a great fan of his trombone sound, and I think he’s one of the greatest in Europe. Nils has a very strong personality, and you can always count on him for something creative. He’s extraordinary.”