Isak Hedtjärn plays the clarinet — a straight, metal variant of the more common wooden B flat Clarinet. Kvarpan is Isak’s first ‘solo’ record, but you also hear him in ‘quartet’ with himself, too on this diverse suite of improvisations recorded ‘on location’ on a single day at Patons Malmgård — his usual practice spot just by where the ferries head over to Finland. We recorded until the throb of the boats and waiting cars took over.
A polymath of undeniable musicality, Isak is a constant, always invigorating presence across a breadth of ‘scenes’ in Stockholm be it via in his own groups — Grismask, Svenska Folkjazzkvartetten, Festen — or making guest appearances in concert and on record with Viagra Boys, Fire! Orchestra, Rotem Geffen, Kali Malone and many many more. His online notoriety as @JazzIsak, the deft editor of a stream of classic jazz and tiktok dance/crash mashups is not only a riotous good time but gives you some other small window into the scope and scale of his knowledge of and feeling for all the music that has gone before.
His own notes to the record point specifically to clarinettists Johnny Dodds, Perry Robinson, Jimmy Giuffre and Sükrü Tunar and acknowledge the abiding mentorship of Harald Hult, Raymond Strid, Christer Bothén and especially Roland Keijser, the saxophonist and founder of legendary progg combo Arbete och Fritid and a veritable living library of international folk melodies until his passing in 2019. On Kvarpan Hedtjärn renders these influences in his own way — deeply personal, alluring and strange. As Mats Gustafsson says in his notes to the record “This ain’t no normal slang med halka”.
Fönstret, 2024