From Jazz på svenska to Jazz på ryska: The Author’s View on Folklore in the Works by Jan Johansson

Jan Johansson (1931–1968) was one of the most prominent representatives of Swedish jazz, pianist, arranger, composer, and founder of the national jazz school. During his short life — only 37 years — the musician made many interesting recordings and started the tradition of jazz arrangements of folklore in Northern European jazz. Jan Johansson is widely known as the author of the albums Jazz på svenska (1964) and Jazz på ryska (1967), in which he arranged popular folk melodies in a jazz key. The article traces various approaches to folklore material in jazz, types of arrangements and methods of thematic development, and notes the difference in the treatment of folk sources in the ‘Swedish’ and ‘Russian’ albums. The distinctive features of Johansson’s style are revealed in these works: restrained sound, refined performance, precise phrasing, and reliance on the melodic and modal features of Swedish folk music. Meanwhile, the musician’s work goes far beyond ethnojazz, covering a wide range of styles and trends, which are also discussed in the article. The author reveals the role of Johansson’s recordings in the further development of Scandinavian jazz, in particular, in the formation of such a trend as Nordic jazz.