2025 № 1 (52)

UDC 78.03

LBC 85.318

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-1-314-349

For cit.: Savitskaya E.A. From Jazz på svenska to Jazz på ryska: The Author’s View on Folklore in the Works by Jan Johansson. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 1, pp. 314–349. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-1-314-349. (In Russian)

Savitskaya Elena A. 

PhD (in Art History), Senior Researcher, Mass Media Arts Department, State Institute for Art Studies, 5 Kozitsky Lane, Moscow, 125375, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6688-3286 

ResearcherID: AAS-8169-2021

Scopus Author ID: 57215201580 

helen@inrock.ru

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

Abstract. 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. 

Keywords: Jan Johansson, Swedish jazz, folklore, ethnojazz, Nordic jazz

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Received 10.09.2024

Accepted 18.10.2024