The annual meeting 2013

In spite of - or may be thanks to - the lovely, almost summer like weather 53 members and friends of the Swedish Bunk Johnson Society gathered for the annual meeting at The Swedish Jazz Archive in Stockholm on May 25th.

President Claes Ringqvist opened the meeting with a minute of silence for our member Nils "Cannonball" Rehman who passed away on February 6th this year. Nils, a fine bass player and a wonderful singer, will be sadly missed.

After this mark of respect our new member Bob McAllister was welcomed as well as the three new members from last year, Harald Hult, Nils-Bertil Morgell and Ulf Jägfors.

Greetings to the annual meetings had arrived from Big Bill Bissonette, Chris Hillman and Mike Pointon.

Claes continued by giving his compliments to Christer Fellers for his great work with the Bunk Johnson homepage, www.fellers.se.

Sven Gustafson informed on activities planned to rise funds for the reopening of the New Orleans Jazz Museum hopefully in 2015. As a matter of fact we have already raised SEK 17 000 (ca USD 2 600), including a donation of SEK 10 000 (ca USD 1 500) from SBJS, even before the activities have started. After handling the 2012 economics of the society and the re-election of the Executive Committee the time had come for Sven's dinner. This year we were treated a minor Smorgasbord, delicious as always when Sven is in charge of pots and pans.

Back in the lecture hall Ingemar Wågerman gave us a brief information on his new book "Jazz at Vespers - Jazz och Religion". In the book you find a lot of information on how jazz and religion have influenced each other. Ingemar closed with many thanks to the society for a donation that made the publishing possible. This highly recommended book is the first of its kind and can be ordered via e-mail.

Then it was time for this year's state-of-the-art lecture. In one and a half hour Ulf Jägfors gave us the story of the banjo, from African lute to Jazz and Bluegrass instrument. In a most learned and humorous lecture Ulf not only told us the development of the instrument from arrow bows in the early history of man to the modern banjo but also gave a lot of interesting musical examples from his many journeys to Africa as well as from the early days of Ragtime and Jazz in the US. Without the banjo and the tuba there wouldn't have been any jazz was Ulf's opinion. I am quite sure we will have a new and deeper understanding of the banjo and it's role in jazz after Ulf's lecture.

In this year's Jazz Quiz Jan Lorentzon wanted us to give the exact names of orchestras from USA, GB, France, Denmark and Sweden. Jan had on purpose chosen many orchestras out of New Orleans to give other members than Bo Scherman and Per Oldaeus the opportunity to win the Quiz. But of course that didn't help. Bo was number one and Per number two with our guest from Norway Trygve Hernaes as the winner of the bronze medal. We just have to accept facts. These guys are impossible to beat.

Bo Lindström said a few words about the new book "Jazz Puzzles Vol. 1" written by Dan Vernhettes with the assistance of Bo. In this most impressive book you find a lot of facts about fourteen of the great names of early New Orleans Jazz. Then it's up to the reader to draw his own conclusions from the facts. That's why the name "Jazz Puzzles" Bo told us.

Before the live music started Åke Sahlberg gave his compliments to Håkan Håkansson and Claes Ringqvist for all their work with Bunk Johnson Information in the past years. As you might know Per Oldaeus is now in charge of the society's annual newsletter assisted by Bo Scherman even if you find Håkan in the background as a senior adviser. To express his gratitude Åke presented Håkan and Claes framed pieces of wallpaper from Bunk's home in New Iberia. That's something to impress generations to come!

And then the time had come for our traditional closing of the meeting; live music. We were brought back to the glorious early days of jazz by our members Christer Fellers tp, Bob McAllister tb, Alders Alm cl, Arne Högsander ts, Lars Tidholm p, Håkan Rosenqvist bjo, Göran Stachewsky sb and Per Oldaeus dr. Thank you guys for a memorable closing of a great meeting. See you all next year again.

P-O Karlström