Dreams: an interview with jazz pianist and composer Adam Forkelid
Imagine walking on stage to give a solo concert with no music, no chord progression, and no fixed plan of what you’re going to play. This is exactly what Swedish jazz pianist Adam Forkelid did last year in the intimate 50-seat venue Krematoriet in Stockholm, Sweden. Armed with nothing more than a few sketches and original song ideas, he let the atmosphere and familiar faces in the room guide his playing. The music unfolded, each piece exploring new ideas and themes, and each one inviting listeners to journey with him into their own imaginations and dreams.
Dreams, Adam Forkelid’s latest release, is a live recording of that concert. It highlights the evocative melodies, elegant touch, tone, and gorgeous chord progressions that has established Forkelid as a fixture in the Swedish jazz scene for over 20 years. The immediacy and freshness of the improvisations captured on this album take listeners into the open-ended searching of live composing, while offering reassurance that in his musical hands, all musical paths are grounded in a masterful understanding of structure.
From his early breakthrough with the influential trio Lekverk, to collaborations with Maria Schneider, Nils Landgren, Viktoria Tolstoy, and the Norrbotten Big Band, Forkelid has consistently pushed the boundaries of Scandinavian jazz, whether in adventurous large-ensemble settings, or forward-leaning projects. It’s an honor to feature him and his music on No Dead Guys.
I understand you began both drum and piano lessons at the age of five and that you were immediately drawn to jazz and improvisation. Who or what introduced you to this style of music?
I grew up in a musical family and my dad was a professional piano player and educator. There were plenty of jazz records spinning at home and I also got to play a lot in a duo with my dad. When you’re four or five years old you’re not a stranger to improvising, it feels natural. And I’ve always felt a connection with jazz music.
At what age did you begin composing your own music and what was your first piece?
I think I was seven when I tried to compose the first time. I played drums in a band with an incredible 12-year-old guitarist, and I tried to write a couple of tunes for that band.
You’re recognized as a mainstay in the Swedish jazz scene. In what ways do you feel Swedish jazz is distinct from jazz being played in other countries?
If you look deeply, there’s probably a certain melodic sense that can be traced back to our folk music, and also sometimes a kind of roundness in the timing and tempo perception, that is distinctly different from the “American way”. Much of it is probably on a very subconscious level (like a dialect), but there have also been many Swedish musicians who have done folk inspired jazz throughout the years, ever since the 1950’s, from saxophonist Lars Gullin and pianist Jan Johansson, to more modern groups like E.S.T. But that said, Sweden has everything from ECM veteran Bobo Stenson, free form giant Mats Gustafsson to gospel fusion Dirty Loops.
Congratulations on the many grants and awards you’ve received for your music, especially from Fasching, the Bert Levins Foundation, STIM, SKAP, and the Swedish indie label award Manifest that you and your trio Lekverk received in 2011. How many of these awards honored your own compositions?
In a way all of these did. Some of them are for combined efforts of being jazz musician and composer, like Fasching and Levin, and some are based solely on my work as a composer, like STIM and SKAP. The Manifest award was for an album that was made up of at least half of my compositions, so that can count too.
One of the many things that impresses me about your successful career is the numerous projects you’ve been part of, most notably your work with your early trio Lekverk to collaborations with Maria Schneider, Nils Landgren, Pedro Martins, Viktoria Tolstoy, and the Norrbotten Big Band. Given how frequently you perform with other musicians, why did you choose to focus on solo piano for your latest album, Dreams?
For a long time, I’ve been playing on my own, exploring music, composing, immersing myself in what the piano can sound like. I think this is one of the things many piano players do, but not all of them in public. I started to feel that I could maybe produce some interesting music out of this that an audience would also appreciate. In a way, I wanted to see if I could keep my calm and focus throughout the concert. And I believe I actually did.
I understand that the music featured on Dreams was captured live during an intimate concert at Stockholm’s 50-seat venue Krematoriet where you played with only loose sketches in mind, and that four of the six tracks are completely improvised, shaped in real time by the atmosphere and audience. How did the room and the audience inspire your music?
The room has a lot to do with my inspiration. This is a place where I often work, both rehearsing, playing, practicing, composing and playing concerts. The grand piano is an amazing Fazioli F278, that I have been so lucky to have had now for a couple of years. The piano itself has unique qualities that spark my imagination. And the audience was to a noticeable extent people I knew, which actually became a part of the inspiration for the music. Some old friends, some new, different parts of life and different music and events that I’ve shared with them.
As a classical player, the idea of walking onstage without the safety of even a chord chart sounds terrifying. When, in your development as a musician, did you trust yourself enough to take this risk?
I think in some ways I have always had a feeling that I was at least as secure with written music as without. To improvise is to acknowledge that there is no right or wrong, there are only events, and how you react to them will largely determine how the music unfolds. I have always liked to have free piano introductions to songs for instance, those few minutes of alone time on stage have often been very inspiring. And I now had the feeling that maybe I could stretch that inspiration out into a full musical piece. For me it often feels like the risk of having music to play where you can make actual mistakes is as great or even greater than the risk of not finding your way in an improvisation.
I found every single track on Dreams beautiful. One of the many things that impressed me about these improvisations is how each is different from the other, and how they never sound formulaic. How difficult was it to avoid falling back on habitual patterns?
Well, I’ve tried very deliberately throughout the years to practice how to surprise myself when playing. That’s the best way I can describe it I think. I need to surprise myself so that I can surprise the listener.
My two favorite pieces on this album are “Dream no. 1: Liminality” and “Dream no. 5: The Quiet Above.” Given that all of this music was improvised, what was your inspiration for these two numbers?
The first piece was quite literally the first notes I played at the concert. I had no idea where I was headed. This kind of freshness has a lot in common with the legendary “first take” when recording. You can’t always express what it is, but this time I listened very closely to the sound of the instrument, and started also to think about the people in the audience, who they were, and some feelings and memories emerged. That’s what I can say about that piece. Dream no. 5 was actually inspired by an older composition of mine called “The Stars”, they share the same key and time signature, at least in the beginning. It can be seen as a meditation around a certain feeling that song gives me.
Another thing that impressed me about these pieces is how you were able to transmit a sense of searching without ever sounding lost. What can you tell me about the challenge of maintaining structure when you’re improvising long-form music such as “Dream No. 3: Time”?
The biggest challenge is to keep calm. The musical waves I surfed during this concert were maybe a bit longer than usual, for me. Maybe what you can hear is the real time emergence of ideas that could have become a composition. As I said, the idea of trying to surprise yourself is what is at play. But as important is the act of just letting the ideas form by themselves, to take a step back and listen to the music your hands are playing. Then the structure can take care of itself.
Most of these tracks feature elegantly unexpected chord changes and gorgeous voice leading. Who were some of the musical influences that helped shape your understanding of harmony?
Well, there are so many. But I can’t get around that I hear the still very heavy influence by someone like Chick Corea or Herbie Hancock, and Jarrett or Bill Evans or Craig Taborn, the list is endless. But aside from that I also think there is something to what Kenny Werner mentions in his book Effortless Mastery, that all piano players have their own kind of natural harmonic sense that is ironically easily corrupted by trying to study harmony. I’ve tried to embrace more of the things that sound both wrong and right to me, not to correct “mistakes” but instead work with them and see if I can make them mine. There is also the ever present influence of composers like Bartòk, Stravinsky, Debussy and many others, that comes to the surface at certain moments. I also think that my study of counterpoint has been very important for my linear hearing and thinking.
What current or future plans are you most excited about?
I’m in the midst of making more music with many of my groups, including my quartet 1st Movement, the electronic project Soundscape Orchestra and the comeback of the trio Lekverk. So there are lots of recordings going on. And also I hope to play some more solo concerts soon!
What advice can you give young musicians seeking to create careers for themselves as performers and composers?
Try to learn as much as possible about the things you actually care about. Listen to the world around you with curiosity, but also try really hard to listen to yourself and what is already inside of you. Lately I’ve also been meditating over the saying: “don’t give people what they want, give them what they didn’t know they wanted”. Somehow that helps me forward. And, the best things in life, music and everything, is finding friends, and the joy and synergy that can bring.
Adam Forkelid (b.1979) is a jazz piano player and composer based in Stockholm, Sweden
Bands include: 1st Movement, Soundscape Orchestra, Lekverk. Also a member of the Svante Söderqvist Trio.
Adam Forkelid has been an influential part of the Swedish and Scandinavian jazz scene for some 20 years. He began early, with drum lessons from the legendary drummer and educator Petúr Östlund from the age of 5, and at the same time began to play the piano under guidance from his father. He was on stage from the same age and has from the very start had a keen interest in jazz and improvisation. He got his formal education at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, where he also later in life was headteacher in jazz piano for a few years. Adam's album debut came 2005, with "Cirkel", an underground hit featuring the remarkable Joakim Milder on saxophone, but the breakthrough came with the playful and innovative trio Lekverk, that had a profound influence on the Nordic jazz scene, ever since their debut album "21st Century Jump" from 2008. With drum star Jon Fält (Bobo Stenson trio, Ellen Andrea Wang, Tomasz Stanko) and innovative bass player Putte Johander (Sekten, Fattigfolket, Monozwesi), the trio managed to fuse playfulness with an uncompromising music in a highly inspiring way. Other notable groups include the futuristic fusion group Soundscape Orchestra, and a trio with Swedish bass legend and master composer Georg Riedel and Jon Fält. Adam has also toured with Brazilian guitar phenomenon Pedro Martins, worked with British composer Gavin Bryars and the Cullberg Ballet, been a member of the world renowned Norrbotten Big Band, where he for a few years worked with the likes of Maria Schneider, Angelique Kidjo and Knower (Louis Cole & Genevieve Artadi), all of whom acknowledged his great skills and creativity. He has also played and toured with most of the prominent Swedish jazz musicians, among them Magnus Öström, Dan Berglund, Nils Landgren, Peter Asplund and Viktoria Tolstoy. Adam is also a part of the Svante Söderqvist Trio.