Musical differences: Sven Klang's Combo

 

At last the film Sven Klang's Combo (as it was known on its UK release) is - at the time of writing, anyway - available to watch online here. This is a big deal because when I last checked a few years ago it wasn't possible to buy a DVD with the appropriate subtitles - and it's well worth seeing.  Benny Green, one of my musical mentors, reviewed it very warmly in Punch as the most convincing portrayal of a band's interactions he had ever seen on film. 

It's about a group of Swedish jazz musicians, happy to play Dixieland jazz in the fifties, who are joined by a  saxophonist with Charlie Parker-type aspirations. Either with permission from the leader or out of devilment (I haven't yet rewatched the film), he plays a Parker-type solo in the middle of a dance, and the reaction is interesting: displaying none of that "Go home dirty Bopper" reaction which famously greeted Bruce Turner's joining Humphrey Lyttleton's band, the crowd opt to remain quite still until he has finished and the more familiar, danceable style kicks in once again.

The impression is given that they didn't stop in order to give their whole attention to this new musical experience; it was just an irrelevance. And their ignoring of this would-be revolutionary playing is worse, in a way, than outright hostility, raising the possibility that this is music which is not going to tear down the walls after all. 

I don't know whether the actors were musicians but a lot of the action centres around their rehearsing, which suggests that either they could play or they learnt the basics during the rehearsal period. A fair chunk of the film, or so I remember, shows them rehearsing. I see from wikipedia that it was based on a stage play, which would explain the rehearsal room setting. 

I should stress that you don't need to be a jazz fan to enjoy, and learn from, the film. It's also about the changing relationships within a group as the initial optimism and sense of a common purpose gradually starts to disintegrate, in this case  because of what the new member is bringing. A scathing mantra in the film is that "All Danes play Dixie" - and at the beginning that had been enough - but it could equally have been a film about a group whose initial bond through a love of Chuck Berry numbers starts to loosen over time.

That scene, the only one I remember vividly, also makes me think of a Matt the Cat interview in which Earl Carroll of the Cadillacs talked of how he was taken aside by an audience member when he tried  to jazz up a doo wop number in order to make it fresh for him again. As I remember the interview, he talked of its being a chastening moment - ie that he ought not to have forgotten who the concert was for - but I wonder ...

If you wish to know more about Earl Carroll I can recommend Forever Doo-wop: Race, Nostalgia and Vocal Harmony, which I've reviewed here. Written by John Michael Runowicz, a musician and academic who worked with Carroll, it discusses the difficulties and contradictions faced by veteran doo wop groups when performing for modern-day, mostly white, audiences. The fact that Runowicz is in such a privileged position - viewing the situation both from outside and as one of the musicians - makes for a compelling read overall.

Any, give Sven Klang's Combo a go is my advice. I saw it in an arthouse cinema - the GFT - in the seventies, so perhaps it only had that kind of audience in the UK, which would explain the lack of a DVD release, but watch it now while you can.