Brass and Bells for the Season
Nils Landgren brings warm, swinging trombone to Christmas standards with friends.
Christmas With My Friends II opens with the warm, round sound of Nils Landgren's trombone sitting comfortably over a relaxed rhythm section, the tempo unhurried and the mood more hearth than concert hall. The instrumentation stays spare: Nils Landgren on trombone, Ida Sand on piano, Eva Kruse on bass, and Johan Norberg on guitar. That small group keeps the arrangements open, so each carol breathes and the lines remain easy to follow.
The record is part of a series of Christmas albums that Landgren began releasing on ACT Music in 2006, and this second volume follows the same approach: familiar seasonal material handled with a jazz player's ease rather than holiday-album sentimentality. Landgren plays with a clean, direct tone and doesn't lean on showmanship. The band swings where it can and settles into ballad feel where the melody calls for it.
If you want the most distinctive Landgren records, start elsewhere. This one is for listeners who already enjoy the trombonist and want a pleasant, low-pressure seasonal record. It is a solid entry in the series rather than a standout, and it works best as background warmth during the holidays.
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