Customer Reviews

To Sweden With Love

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Buying this disc is probably like ordering filet mignon at a premium restuarant--a small portion of choice entree. The running time is little over a half hour but the music is splendid. Farmer is at his most inventive and while his quartet is minus the usual piano, you will never miss it. Jim Hall on guitar is that good; he is to this quartet what Paul Desmond was to the Dave Brubeck combo. Warmly recommended.

this album is one of art farmer's finest - just
awesome. and how can you go wrong with master
guitarist jim hall? it's a no-brainer that
"To Sweden With Love" is a 5-star album!

Buying this disc is probably like ordering filet mignon at a premium restuarant--a small portion of choice entree. The running time is little over a half hour but the music is splendid. Farmer is at his most inventive and while his quartet is minus the usual piano, you will never miss it. Jim Hall on guitar is that good; he is to this quartet what Paul Desmond was to the Dave Brubeck combo. Warmly recommended.

if I could only listen to one album before I died--a sort of last meal--it would be TO SWEDEN WITH LOVE. everything's working, and sparkles, on this one. I bought an original mono over 35 years ago and never have stopped playing it. Farmer, Hall, Swallow and LaRoca are so intertwined you feel they were born to make this record. the songs, too, the melodies are so unique and wistfully beautiful, you want them to go on and on and on--but unfortunately the album is a little over a half hour long. don't bother going to Farmer's other two offerings on Atlantic, INTERACTION and SING ME SOFTLY OF THE BLUES, the same feeling, the same mix just isn't there. TO SWEDEN WITH LOVE is a one-of-kind. don't miss it.

I had my doubts about jazz arrangements of Sweedish folk songs (Dear Old Stockholm aside). But this is quite a good recording-- if only for the sheer ability and warmth of the musicians.

Steve Swallow and Pete LaRoca are truly dynamic-- they make the group swing like a mellower John Coltrane quartet. And Jim Hall's improvisations are acceptionally interesting. Farmer is solid as always. The melodies aren't exactly "jazzy" but the arrangements are good, and once the improvisation starts, each tune is jazz played at a very high level.