From the Vault of Joy: Art Farmer's 'To Sweden with Love'

 

Typepad recently gave me unlimited storage, so I thought I'd put it to good use by introducing a feature which I'll call 'From the Vault of Joy'. I own upwards of 5,000 CDs, which I'm in the process of digitizing. Every once in a while, I run across a relatively obscure acquisition and think to myself: 'More people should hear this.' Thanks to digital technology, now more people can! My plan is to post obscure gems that I've picked up on my wanderings. 

The first Vault of Joy installment is a 1988 Japanese re-issue of a 1964 Atlantic recording of Art Farmer's (d)* 'To Sweden with Love'. Farmer toured Sweden in the late 1950s, and fell in love with Swedish folk songs. Presumably, as a charismatic black American jazz musician touring negro-mad Sweden in 1964, he experienced many other kinds of love as well -- but we'll leave that for another day.** Farmer eventually settled in Vienna, which became his home base until his death in 1999.

Farmer bounced around between various projects in the early '60s, as his early hard-bop style mellowed under the influence of West Coast jazz. Farmer maintained a quartet under his own name in 1963 and '64 which also featured Jim Hall on electric guitar. At that time, Hall's peerless collaborations with Bill Evans and Paul Desmond were making him legendary. for this short record, Farmer and Hall are joined by Steve Swallow on bass, and Pete Laroca on drums. The quartet plays six Swedish folk songs. Farmer opts for the mellower fluegelhorn as opposed to the trumpet, in keeping with the gentle, reserved nature of the melodies. Hall is, as always, staggeringly inventive, without a touch of vulgar showmanship.

33 minutes of West Coast groove with a Nordic accent!

Art Farmer -- To Sweden with Love

* A Japanese firm was the first to re-issue this recording on CD, and that the German Wikipedia entry on Art Farmer is longer and more sophisticated than the English-language one. Not that jazz isn't a universal art form, but it's just embarrassing that Americans aren't out in front on this.

 

** Not that I blame Farmer for preferring a continent in which his skin color gets him special treatment from women, rather than rednecks and police officers.

Comments

[Mr. Oblique]

I have known, including in the biblical sense, some of those Inges and Clotildes you mention, and what they have told me about their experiences with blacks falls under the heading of young, who-gives-a-damn, heady years of sexual experimentation; just a wham-bang-thank-you-black-man phase. After trying out "the dark meat," (as an African-American friend of mine referred to it sardonically), they usually move on to trustworthy, reliable, white German civil servant husbands and unexciting but stable marriages.

There may be an element of racism here, too, but at least it's racism that a black man might welcome as long as he sees it as a game; but if he should fall in love he will come up against many invisible barriers.

That said, I do see, and am pleased to see, many more mixed-race couples, including white German men with black women, once a rarity.

RE the Art Farmer recording. The recording isn't a downloadable file (at least I can't download it, though I can listen to it).

[Andrew]

Re: Copyright.

Here's my philosophy about these things.

First, I'm an American. We just do stuff without asking permission beforehand. Ready, fire, aim is our motto. See Google, Iraq War.

Second, I'm sharing interesting music that is hard (or impossible) to find at normal prices in Germany. If you look here, you'll see that this album is out of print and only available for something like 40 euros in Germany. That's a lot to pay for 33 minutes of music. It's hardly as if this post is going to undercut a thriving market, or deprive a starving upstart of desperately-needed grocery money. I'm definitely not into that. Further, this is completely non-commercial. I make no money from this blog at all.

Third, my experience is that finding interesting music online generally makes people want to buy more of the music. I've bought at least 20 albums after hearing songs from them on Soma FM or the Owl and Bear.

Fifth, if someone gets in touch with me and objects to this post, I'll be happy to take it down.

Sixth, if someone sues me for money, good luck with that! In true American fashion, I'm drowning in debt.

Seventh, it's sharing! Isn't sharing nice?

There you have my thoughts on these matters.

[Astron]

Unless Andrew start to serve entire albums with every post, promoting a relatively obscure musician once in a while won't be making it very probable he will be sued.

Totally unrelated, yet still on the topic of music: I really like Neonbelle.

[Fels]

Oh and and I love the music, somehow reminds me of a Rico Rodriguez album, even it's a completely different style of music.

[Fels]

I know you are an attorney but aren't you afraid of getting sued (or getting a nice german abmahnung)for putting that up? Doesn't really matter if the companies involved don't exist anymore, someone got the rights and their german attorney might smell some easy money..

[Andrew]

True enough, Herr Oblique, but Farmer wasn't your ordinary 'dark-skinned migrant' (or even worse, a homegrown gypsy), he was, as I noted, a 'charismatic black American jazz musician'.

In other words (according to the Nordic stereotype), he was sensual, soulful, well-endowed, impulsive, misunderstood -- the tragic victim of a callously racist, money-mad, culture-despising society.

This stereotype, by the way, is still in full effect. I happen to know a few charismatic young black Americans (you don't have to me a musician, tho' it helps), and I can certify that everywhere they go in Western Europe (they rarely venture East, for obvious reasons), they're beating off the Inges and Clotildes and Mariangelas with a stick.

Verily I say unto thee, the sybaritic escapades of these men would curl Hefner's toenails. One friend of mine, an African-American lawyer who pops over to Europe a couple of times a year, has repeatedly had mind-breakingly acrobatic one-night stands with women who turned out to be high-class hookers. They didn't tell him, and never demanded money. They just wanted to help him ease his pain. And boy, did they ever succeed.

I categorically deny that intense, soul-scarring envy had any effect on the phrasing of this comment.

[Mr. Oblique]

"Not that I blame Farmer for preferring a continent in which his skin color gets him special treatment from women, rather than rednecks and police officers."

That was Sweden in the pre-Rosengård Sixties, when black faces were rarely seen.

Since then, migrants in Europe, especially darker-skinned ones, have been discriminated against, firebombed, beaten, thrown out of moving trains, and so on.... Or were the perpetrators Southern rednecks in disguise?

Nevertheless, many thanks for the Farmer recording. Niels Lan Doky has also done some wonderful things with Scandinavian folk songs.