Well I was born and raised in the fifties, in Scania the southest part of Sweden. Back then the music around you were popular classical music, easy listening popular music from the western world, and a lot of Swedish accordeon music like polkas and waltzes.
-- The first music that caught my attention was the traditionall jazz music. Especially the clarinet who ran around freely up and down, playin whatether he liked. So I started to play the clarinet and the tenor saxophone. In the age of twelwe I joined a six piece band playin old time jazz and swing. Then came the pop revolution and I jumped into the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. I started to play the guitar and studied piano playing.
-- A few years later I was very much into the blues, soulmusic, as well as folkmusic, contemporary jazz music and free form improvisation. In the early seventies I met Don Cherry. He was a great musician and a great inspiration. His family house in Scania was a meeting place for the very best musicians from all over the world. Musicians like Pandith Pra Nah, Terry Riley, Manding Griot Society, Super Etoille de Dakar with a young Youssou N'dour. Don opened my eyes and ears in all directions. To be curious. Open up. Let it in. Let it out. Ride with the flow. True worldmusic, long before that label was invented.
-- And I got into Jazz, funk, fusion, salsa and then back to the early blues and rock & roll from New Orleans. Inspired of cajun and zydeco music from Louisiana, tex-mex, coumbia and forro from "south of the border" I took up accordeon playing. That also opened a door to my Swedish musical roots, but with a foreign twist. Like in my band "the Polka Twisters."
-- In the begining of the nineties I met Jali Alagi Mbye a griot from the West Africa. He introduced me to the treasure of Westafrican music and storytelling. Some years later we formed a group: "AfriScania Mix." We perfomed in Sweden and Denmark. When visiting Alagi Mbye in The Gambia I also met the great kontingmaster Jali Demba Danjo and I begun studying the art of konting playing. I know that I've just slightly opened the door to a great musical world. I'm just catching a glimpse of it. It's beautifull and it's an important root to modern music, as we know it.
-- In my recent projects "Awaa Adoo" and "Songs and Tales from the Seven Seas" I include many of my musical experiances.
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