Sven Åke Johansson

As the number of Free Jazz pioneers pass on, it’s striking to note how many of them maintained their creativity to the very end. Peter Brötzmann was one innovator to which this applied as was another member of Brötzmann’s trio who recorded the seminal For Adolphe Sax in 1967, Swedish drummer and conceptional artist Sven Åke Johansson. Unlike some others who abandoned music or drifted towards more conventional sounds, Johansson, who died at 82 in 2025 was involved in musical projects with improvisers who seemed to get progressively younger as he aged. Take the five long improvisations on this two-CD live set from April 2024. He’s joined on all tracks by bassist and fellow Swede Joel Grip, with the two joined on four tracks by Grip’s [Ahmed] member, UK alto saxophonist Seymour Wright; and on four tracks by French alto saxophonist Pierre Borel, part of Die Hochstaple, who also plays drums on one of the tunes when Johansson plays accordion. Besides the tracks with both saxophonists, the bassist and drummer play with one or the other saxist on a single tune.

Throughout Johansson fits his playing carefully within the quartet or trio setting, limiting himself to carefully timed shuffles, cymbal accents or drum strokes. The only time he intensifies his beat is on the first CD’s third track when facing both saxophonists. With one alto saxophonist concentrating on foghorn-like honks and the other shrill squeals and various pitches, he and Grip’s strained arco rubs and pizzicato strums provide the sonic ballast. About one-third of way along, when the saxophonists seemingly amuse themselves shoehorning snatches of Bop standards into their solos, it’s Johansson’s galloping drum smacks and martial beats that burlesques their brief turn to straight-ahead. This switch  encourages them to combine their honks and yelps into a distinctive thematical phrase which is maintained until the end.

Again while Wright’s strident bites and dour Morse-code-like timbres can be torqued to circular breathed pressure with multiple patterns and multiple tones, it’s the Boel trio number that extend for the lengthiest – 30-minute plus – period. With note-bending and strained flutters, he works up and down the scale with split tones, and is met with equal ferocity from the bassist’s dedicated bowing and the drummer’s cymbal smacks and rumbles. Introducing a new theme slightly before the half-way mark, the woodiness of Grip’s reflective strokes and the hollowness of Johansson’s stick tapping adds life to Borels’ toneless air expelling. Before the saxophonist’s puffing out nearly endless whines ends with a dog-whistle-like squeal, widening chords from the accordion’s bellows and the bassist’s sul ponticello stops reconstitute the performance for a jauntier and speedier finale.

More a literal record of what the octogenarian percussionist could bring to a club set rather than a cerebral piece of program music, Two Days at Café Oto still showcases Johansson’s multi-instrument versatility. Holding his own with younger players, his cadences are the self-confident glue that tethered to Grip’s throbbing pulse keeps the saxophonists’ more obtuse playing from becoming too abstract.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Wright, Johannson, Grip 2. Borel, Wright, Johannson, Grip* 3. Borel, Wright, Johannson, Grip; CD2: 1. Borel, Johannson, Grip 2. Borel, Wright, Johannson, Grip

Personnel: Seymour Wright (alto saxophone); Pierre Borel (alto saxophone, drums*); Joel Grip (bass) and Sven Åke Johansson (drums, accordion)