When he was eight Andreas Pettersson won a jackpot on an one-armed bandit. He used the money to buy a guitar and the guitar to track first Jimi Hendrix and then Eddie van Halen and John Mclaughlin.

Today some 30 years later he is still playing the guitar. But the flavour is no longer rock, though hopefully "still with its energetic relationship to music". Since he was invited to join trombone legend Lasse Lystedt's group in the early 80s, Andreas has chosen jazz and played it with many of the best, international names. One such involvement was playing in Putte Wickman's quartet for several years, another a visit to Los Angeles last year to play with Ernie Watts and John Guerin, a partnership with plans for releasing a live disk.

His latest CD is titled Getting Close to You and offers unusually high-spirited music-making together with his handpicked partners. Featuring bass player Mads Vinding, drummer Ed Thigpen and pianist Daniel Karlsson, this disk swings from the first to the last note! And does so whether it is a straight, driving piece or a quieter, ballad-style song and regardless of whether it is one of his own pieces or a standard by such names as Jerome Kern, Cedar Walton or the apostate Carl Perkins. Style-wise the music stands firmly in the 50s and 60s, but the performance is so strongly immediate that the entire presentation stands resolutely in year 2002.

Johan Scherwin
(Translation: Sven Borei)