The double bassist Georg Riedel who appeared on 1964 European classic jazz album Jan Johansson's Jazz på svenska (''Jazz in Swedish'') has died in Stockholm at the age of 90. Of Czech Jewish and Sudeten German parentage, as a young child Riedel migrated to Sweden from his native Czechoslovakia after the German annexation of the Sudetenland. Swedish pianist Jan Johansson (1931-1968) remains a haunting influence through pristine modal harmony, a painterly almost impressionist distance, and the harnessing of the lilt of Swedish folk music on jazz in Europe. Johansson is certainly a hero to leading advanced pianists spanning the continent notably English musician Kit Downes and many fine players before him including most influentially in the lifetime of the groundbreaking e.s.t., the much missed Esbjörn Svensson.
Groups such as Ensemble Edge have paid tribute to Jazz på svenska in recent years - Riedel's contribution to its success was significant. As well as appearing on the seminal Johansson album, Riedel during a long and distinguished career also composed music for Pippi Longstocking writer Astrid Lindgren's films as well as collaborating and arranging material for the great Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund. Writing in The Guardian in 2011 leading British jazz critic John Fordham, reviewing the Jan Johansson/Georg Riedel album In Hamburg noted how ''very compatible'' the bassist was to Johansson. Georg Riedel, photo: Arild Vågen
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