BENGT BERGER - BECHES BREW BIG

• bengt berger: beches brew big
      (2013, cd, sweden, country & eastern ce27)

Swedish record label Country & Eastern is about to release "Beches Brew Big", another fine album by composer, drummer, producer and label manager Bengt Berger.

"Beches Brew Big" is an excellent follow-up to Bengt 'Beche' Berger's "Beches Brew". As the title of the new album suggests, the 5-piece ensemble has been extended to a nonet!
Livet Nord on violin and vocals, Jonas Knutsson on saxes, Mats Öberg on keyboards and harmonica, Göran Klinghagen on banjo and guitar, Thomas Gustafsson on saxes, Sir Thomas Jäderlund on vocals, saxes and clarinet, Max Schultz on vocals, banjo and guitar, Bengt Berger on drums, and Stefan Bellnäs on bass.
As one can expect from this incredible line-up, there is some great music to be enjoyed.
"Beches Brew Big" got recorded in concert in Stockholm and in Gothenburg last year, and it presents 11 highly enjoyable eclectic jazz or jazz-rock compositions.
And it's not just the compositions that are excellent, the soloing is superb.
Max Schultz's guitar sounds great in-between all the horns, and Mats Öberg's keyboard lines are great. If my ears don not deceive me, Mats even plays a (chromatic) harmonica solo and a keyboard solo at the same time in 'Babel Twist'. Amazing.

"Beches Brew Big" is a fine album. The following live fragment is from the same concert / recording session but it did not make the album. It will, however, give you a fine idea of what to expect from "Beches Brew Big".