Afro Blue by GUSH

Recorded Dec 17th, 1998, by Pawel Lucki at Jazzclub Fasching, Stockholm

1 and 2 by Sten Sandell (STIM)
3 by Mongo Santamaria (BMG Bumblebee o/b/o Mongo Music Inc. and Edward B Marks Music Company)
4 by Gustafsson, Sandell and Strid (STIM)


GUSH was obviously on fire this evening, pushing aside some of its conceptual interests for an unexpurgated leap into the free jazz inferno.

As Gustafsson asks in his liner note essay, “When we now listen back to this live recording from Jazzclub Fasching in Stockholm we could not believe our ears. Pieces. Drone based structures with clear harmonic centers. Composed ideas. Even a Mongo Santamaria piece (made famous by the great John Coltrane). What happened here? What happened there? Why did we not continue that path?”
The answer to those questions is that GUSH took different, no less satisfying paths, but time has passed and we have enough perspective to recognize the beauty, originality, and passion of this magical performance. GUSH has always been many things, and on Afro Blue we’re lucky to revisit one side of that totality.

Born 1964 in Umeå, Sweden.
Saxplayer, improviser and composer.
working groups The Thing, FIRE!, Gush, Swedish Azz and Fake (the facts). 1800 concerts and over 200 album productions.