Peter Zadig – pianist
I met Peter in 1976 at a restaurant in Malmö at lunchtime, we had met shortly at a jam a few days earlier and since we were the only guests we started to talk. After a while Peter told me he did not have any friends and I told him that neither did I, so we decided to become friends. Peter was my best friend for many years and an exceptional talent. We played together in Equinox and Storm.
Guffi Pallesen – bassist
When I first started playing in Copenhagen I went back and forth to Malmö almost daily. My plan was to move so when we had a substitute bass player in Tivoli’s big band that actually got the band to swing, was a real sweet guy, that also managed to get me another steady gig at Nezer’s piano bar and that told me there was a room available where he lived that I could rent, that was the beginning of a long friendship.
Besides playing every night at the piano bar we later played together with Tomas Franck’s quartet, with Finn Ziegler and several other bands. Without comparison Guffi is the bass player I played with the most and we played real well together. When I came back after my first “around the world” cruise ship gig I learnt that we did not have the apartment anymore but that we had bought a house together while I was away. Guffi and his wife Vibeke, another couple Claus and Hanne and myself. Well I needed a place to live and had a steady income…
Later Tomas Franck rented a room in our house and then also Jens Melgaard. We turned a little house in the garden into a rehearsal space, or rather Guffi did, he was a trained carpenter.
Guffi and Vibeke got a daughter, Cecilie and had a dog that I loved, Urd. I haven’t seen Guffi or the others since I left Copenhagen more than 20 years ago, but I think of him and the others often.
Rest in peace my dear friend.
Jens Melgaard – bassist
I met Jens in Copenhagen at the La Fontaine Jazz club some late night around 1984. We sat in jamming together and that was the best drummer – bassist interplay I ever had. We then played together many times, always good but strangely never as good as that first time. Jens lived for a while in our house at Alhambravej. I think that Jens was the biggest bass talent in Copenhagen and that city had players like Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Mads Vinding and Jesper Lundgaard.
Lars Winther – percussionist
Lars was the principal percussionist in Danish Radio “Underholdningsorkestret” and for a few years we played together almost daily, having many talks and good times together during all the breaks you have as a percussionist. We were experts in leaving the cantine with just about enough time to get back to play our next cue.
Kent Andersson – audio engineer
I met Kent when he got hired to do all the installations in Studio Alpha. Kent was the sweetest of persons and extremely competent. Now later when doing some installations together with Anders Blomqvist I fully understand what a remarkable job he did thinking of every detail. The students at school loved him and he is really a big part in the studio becoming so good. He watched all the other workers like a hawk making sure everybody did their job correctly. In Stockholm he had the nickname “jordkungen”, King of grounding. When some studio had grounding problems like hum and no one else managed to fix it they called for Kent. Among studio engineers he was considered odd but in our Composers’ Hall in Visby he were among friends, being more or less odd all of us.
Ingvar Elén – painter
My father was a painter from Stockholm and studied with Isaac Grünewald & Otte Sköld at the Art Academy for 7 years. He also played piano and sometimes took the guitar and sung some songs by Lillebror Söderlund & others. One clear memory i have was after only having played drums for a short while we played some Duke Ellington tunes together on piano & drums. I wish I could have talked to him when I got a little older and that I was not such a pain in the ass the last years that he lived. He died when I was 15 years old.
Kirsten Elén
My mother from Copenhagen. Loved by everyone, always helpful and for many years taking care of Arilds library and working at “Kullakonst”, the art gallery at Krapperup Castle.