For some, Nils Landgren’s Christmas concert in St. Matthew’s Church is as much a part of the pre-Christmas period as Spekulatius or Advent carols. 16 years ago, the Swedish jazz trombonist (and not only in Germany the most prominent representative of his field) gathered close companions for a “Christmas With My Friends” tour through Swedish and German churches for the first time. He has repeated this every other year since then, documenting it on seven albums on his regular Munich label Act. Although this time, because of Corona, it was only a year late that the time had come again.
The fact that this performance again ranks at the top of the title race for the most atmospheric and beautiful Christmas concert is due to the diversity. The diversity of the repertoire, which combines classics like “Silent Night” with unknowns like the Polish “Gdy ślicz na Panna” (translated here to English “Listen To My Lullaby”), new standards like Michael Bublé’s “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas ” and own pieces like Johan Norberg’s “This Christmas”. Above all, however, the diversity of the interpretation: Thanks to the very different characteristics of the vocal and instrumental parts of this octet – from Norberg’s folky guitar and Jonas Knutsson’s lyrical to gnarly saxophones to the classic soprano of Jeanette Köhn, the bittersweet soul of Ida Sands, the bell tone from Jessica Pilnäs, the blues colors of Sharon Dyall and the bright soul of Landgren himself – everything comes in its own surprising version, like “Oh Tannenbaum” as a Dixie number.
Sometimes it sounded lively and humorous, sometimes solemn and hymn-like. And at the latest after the encore with the totally reduced and thus all the more touching sung by Landgren in a duo with Norberg, unfortunately red-hot “Imagine” by John Lennon even the most grouchy about Christmas left the Matthew’s Church without a few tears of emotion.