40 years ago my international career started for real when I got a call from the musical mastermind Thad Jones, asking me to join his new big band project ”Ball of Fire” in Milan, Italy.
Guess if I said yes!
Since then I have walked winding musical paths and I still do.
As the pandemic started to spread, I got stranded at home in Skillinge Sweden from 13 March 2020.
Many many months later, I can present something I’ve never done before, a solo performance. Only me, myself and my trombone in a beautiful-sounding church not far away from where I live with my wife Beatrice, Ingelstorp Kyrka.
I do not really know exactly when the idea got stuck in my head but I guess around Christmas 2020. Having spent a strange but personally wonderful year being at home, I suggested a solo recording to my wife, and she thought it was a great idea.
I called the priest in the church, named Maria, and she immediately said ”Yes, go for it. I will see to it that the church is heated and ready for you”.
The first time was almost a shock. Such a beautiful sound, making the tone of my trombone just fly through time and space. Beatrice and I looked at each other in silence, knowing that this can become something special.
I picked a wide range of songs and hymns for these occasions and it felt very special to be able to record it in a wonderful room with only one person in the audience, the one I love the most.
All the songs have a special meaning to me, whether they are songs I sang in church as a child or just picked them up on the way. One is even written by one of my ancestors, Israel Kolmodin.
They present a side of me that is always there, but not always to be seen. I hope you like it.
Love,
Nils