Bach Jazz - II (Black Vinyl LP)

Facts Bach Jazz's debut album, released in fall 2024, was acclaimed by critics and delivered a breakthrough of a very unusual kind. The trio's organic and playful interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach's timeless music continue to fascinate and draw in new listeners.

Bach Jazz has appeared on SVT's Go'kväll, Sverige! and the quiz show Kulturfrågan Kontrapunkt. The album has spent a total of half a year on the Swedish jazz Top 20 sales chart (longer than any other contemporary Swedish jazz act) and has surpassed one million digital streams. The group's roughly 40 concerts across the country, from Piteå to Malmö, have been met with overwhelming applause. The February evening at a sold-out Nefertiti in Gothenburg was broadcast on Sveriges Radio P2.
Many have drawn parallels to Jan Johansson's iconic folk music interpretations. Could that be one reason so many have embraced the trio's music?

On the second album, II (released on the baroque master's birthday, March 31, 2026), the music broadens and deepens further. It is open and warm, reflective and exploratory. It takes on more aspects of Johann Sebastian Bach's boundless universe.

The world is partly different now. War, brute power, resignation. Digital noise of harsh ideals and artificial coldness. The desire to meet as human beings grows. Music that has carried societies through centuries is a source of perspective and strength. A shared place. A guide to humanity.

The repertoire on II spans widely. From beloved masterpieces to curious experiments. The trio's playfulness is intact. Never before has the Advent chorale Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 been played in 7/8 time. The pastoral Sheep May Safely Graze from the Hunting Cantata has been reworked into a tender lullaby, and Prelude X (The Well-Tempered Clavier) turns out to be possibly the earliest historical example of spy jazz.

Fantasia Prelude, BWV 922 features a moving string improvisation over a chord sequence that, after 310 years, is astonishingly fresh. In Aria Variata, BWV 989 the master was inspired by Italy, but in Bach Jazz it sounds strikingly Nordic. And Black Pearl, the black pearl of the Goldberg Variations: in this light, it has never shimmered before. Buß und Reu (penance and remorse) from the St. Matthew Passion is the album's only track with vocals.

Even the frequently played Jesu bleibet meine Freude and Goldberg Aria flow fresh after the trio's patient shaping and recording days at the Klangverket studio in Gothenburg. As with the debut, the music is attentively captured by sound engineer Åke Linton. Instead of a grand piano, an unpretentious upright is used. Instead of a majestic concert hall, we are in a former workshop. What remains is the drive to reduce and strip away, to reach the sincere, intimate, suggestive and unpretentious.