Gunhild Carling/Carling Family

[Maxwell]

As a follow-up to my post on early jazz, I'd like to highly recommend a discovery of mine from about a year ago.

There's a family in Sweden named Carling. (Hmmm...the rhythm of that sentence sounds like the start of a limerick.) At any rate, they play a ot of traditional jazz, and have been doing so since their youngest son Ulf was able to play drums in public. The father Hans "Cooling" Carling (no, I'm not making this up) plays trumpet and occasional piano. The mother, Aina plays banjo and guitar. The "kids" are Max (clarinet/tenor sax), Gerd (piano, alto sax, trombone) Gunhild (trombone, trumpet, bagpipes, recorder, harp, and kitchen sink for all I know), and Ulf (drums). I put "kids" in quotes because they're all adults now and still playing.

A must to check out is their version of "Skokiaan," recorded when Max, Gerd and Gunhild were teenagers. It's a must to see the girls dance in the middle followed by some dynamite trumpet by Gunhild.

There is an extensive collection of videos going back to the early '80s on YouTube. Just search for "Carling family band" or "Gunhild Carling." Gunhild currently also leads a big band which plays a repertoire of new material that hearkens back to the '20s for inspiration but also includes some very good swing.

There are several videos of this band available. I've fallen in love with a tune called "Brumair" written by Hans. There are now three versions available. The earliest two from 2007 feature Gunhild on cornet sounding very Bix-ish. The latest version to go up on YouTube has Gunhild on trumpet, sounding quite different.

And for a real treat, check out the video "Bagpipes in Jazz?" with Gunhild playing "Amazing Grace." This was my first exposure to her music, followed by a video of the family band playing "Muskrat Ramble" when Gunhild was eight years old playing Kid Ory's famous trombone solo.