2008 – 2019 Beches Brew

Posted January 28, 2017

Thomas Gustafsson, Sir Thomas Jäderlund, Göran Klinghagen, Stefan Bellnäs and Bengt Berger (Photo by Nikke Ström)

Beches Brew – the West Coast Edition  has been playing on Saturday afternoons at Studio HPKSM in Gothenburg since January 2018. Swedish Jazzradio broadcasted one and a half hour from one of the concerts on May 22. We decided to record as a lot happened in our music when we played so often. With support from Nikke Ström we recorded at Music A Matic studios with Filip Leyman at the knobs. Here is the album Gothenburg (CE41).

Apart from this we decided to release a suite from the live recording as a separate half hour long digital-only album, Gothenburg Live (CEX23). This album is offered free of charge to you who bought the cd. On the cd you will find a password do download or listened to the live album.

Big thanks to Nikke Ström and to Georg, Anton and Maja for having us at Studio HPKSM all of 2018 and 2019.

In December 2019 we did our last concert at Studio HPKSM in Gothenburg (they still have not paid us!) and it was recorded by Swedish Public Radio and will be broadcast today, September 22, 2020 at 8:30 P.M. (GMT +1). You find it here

BECHES BREW premiered at Fasching in Stockholm on september 1st 2008. We had a great evening, recorded by Swedish National Radio who broadcasted in october 17. We recorded the band the days before and released the album in 2009. The first lineup had Lindha Kallerdahl, Thomas Gustafsson, Max Schultz, Jonas Knutsson, Mats Öberg, Bengt Berger (photo by Thomas Gidén).

   
photo by Thomas Gidén

The CD is was nominated both for a Swedish Grammy and Manifest awards.
“one of the most spectacular records to come out of Europe in 2009…”
“Beches Brew in its entirety, is a wonderfully crafted suite. It is a world of music that ebbs and flows through the soul of Berger, memorably interpreted by his fellow journeymen.” Full All About Jazz review

 BECHES BREW – WEST COAST EDITION from 2009
Stefan Bellnäs, bass; B.B. drums; Sir Thomas Jäderlund, saxes; Livet Nord, violin; Thomas Gustafsson; saxes and Göran Klinghagen (not in pic), banjo and guitar are the members of the Gothenburg edition of Beches Brew.
photo by Lucas Starck
During the fall of 2009 we played 15 brunch concerts at Le Village
and 2010 spring we played every saturday afternoon at L’Assassino in Gothenburg,
some 18 concerts.

BECHES BREW BIG – 2012

photo by Jon Edergren
In september 2012 we combined the Stockholm and Gothenburg versions of the band and did a tour of Sweden and a recording that was released in 2013.

 In april 2013 we played at the Pick’n’Mix festival in Gothenburg. There we also had our first opportunity to play our music together with some of the great Indian musicians. Here we are with Shantala Subramaniam, Sornalatha Akkarai and Sai Giridar:
 

In september 2014 we combined the two versions of the band and did a tour of Sweden and a recording to be released in 2013. When we played Mejeriet in Lund we were joined by one of my old teachers from Ghana, Senior Master Drummer Doe Kushiator and my old friend American percussion maestroAdam Rudolph.

A trio from Beches Brew did the music for Niklas Rådström’s stage version of “The Bible” at Gothenburg City Theatre, me, Göran Klinghagen and Stefan Bellnäs.

On September 11, 2013 Beches Brew BIG is released. The band has grown to nine members:Livet Nord, Jonas Knutsson, Thomas Gustafsson, Sir Thomas Jäderlund, Mats Öberg, Max Schultz, Stefan Bellnäs, Bengt Berger

In January 2016 Beches Brew gave concerts together with Karnatic as well as Hindustani maestros as part of the Beches Indian Brew project. In Chennai we gave a nice concert at the famous Sri Krishna Gana Sabha on January 3, playing with the great vidwans J. B. Srutisagar, Akkarai Sornalatha, V. Suresh and N. Amrit.

Then we played several concerts in Mumbai and Pune, some of them in the distinguished company of Nityanand Haldipur and Sadanand Naimpalli.

You find several videos from these concerts at Country & Eastern’s YouTube-page, e.g this one about the Chennai preparations

In October the Indian return visit took place when the Akkarai Sisters, Jayachandra Rao and Shree Sundarkumar joined us for a lovely two week tour of Sweden. We rehearsed for a couple of days and then played at Stockholm Jazz Festival, in Gothenburg Concert Hall, at Global in Copenhagen, Palladium in Malmö, Kristianstad and at the Umeå Jazz Festival. We recorded three of the concerts and will most likely have an album out later this year. Find out all about it at . As an extra bonus my old teacher from Ghana, Senior Master Drummer Doe Kushiator of the Ewe-cult was able to join us for the Swedish concerts. Here we all are during rehearsals before the first concert.

The last concert of the tour was held at Umeå Jazz Festival on October 29. It was broadcast live on Swedish National Radio and parts of it will end up on the live album from the tour that Country & Eastern will release in August 2017:

Beches Indian Brew in concert. Umeå 20161029

Here is another video sample by Jöns Jönsson where you can follow the piece Edith around during the project, from rehearsals and concerts in Chennai, Mumbai and Stockholm:

At Country & Eastern you will find more about Beches Brew and Beches Indian Brew, Bengt Berger and the other members of the band.

Listen to Sigge Krantz’ first mix from the Country & Eastern album Beches Indian Brew, due in August. Live recordings from our tour in Sweden in October 2016. Here is ”Kakraba High Five” a piece I originally wrote for the ghanaian Bo-Gyil xylophone learned from the great Kakraba Lobi. Song soloists Subhalakshmi and Sornalatha Akkarai. Hope you like it!