Didier Lockwood @ Grand Hotel, Lund, Sweden – November 4, 2017.

Didier Lockwood (violin), Adrien Maignard (guitar).

(Review by JC)

On a trip to Sweden late last year to visit an old friend, I spent a few days in the beautiful old university city of Lund in the south of the country. Near the station there is a fine building, appropriately named the Grand Hotel, with large elegant chandeliers, a distinctive staircase, much-polished wood and many brass fittings with smartly dressed staff. Even though Lund is a fairly small place, as luck would have it during my stay the hotel was hosting a musical event called Grand Soul & Jazz. Sweden, of course, has a long and distinguished jazz history with many of the top American musicians of the 50s, 60s and 70s touring Sweden and some like Don Cherry, Red Mitchell and George Russell made their homes in the country (with Dexter Gordon nearby in Copenhagen).

Although the programme was in Swedish I could see it featured several different styles of music, including jazz, soul, blues and hip-hop, however the only name I recognised was that of Didier Lockwood - but only because I had heard of him, not actually heard him play. The structure of the event was that a number of performances took place simultaneously and the artists played two sets so that, with a little planning, you could wander from room to room and hear most of the musicians and bands.  A little advance research had discovered that, as a jazz violinist, Lockwood was an early follower of Stephane Grappelli but was also keen on Jean-Luc Ponty, so he certainly covered the two ends of the jazz violin spectrum.

Picking up part of his first set, it was clear he was a very fine player in the Grappelli improvised style (not so much Hot Club, although he had a very good guitarist with him) and also an entertaining conversationalist. And as promised, he went quite 'Jean-Luc' in the second set, playing a small electric violin with much electronic gadgetry, loops and pedals, etc. On these instruments, he again displayed his excellent musical and technical ability but after about half an hour my friend and I felt we had had an 'ample sufficiency' (as my grandmother used to say) and moved upstairs to hear the soul band. This was not a criticism more a personal preference.

Having heard of his recent untimely death, I am pleased that I had the opportunity to hear him play live and would have liked to have heard him again maybe in a more intimate jazz club setting. Sadly this is not to be.

JC.