Zara Tellander

This CD is entitled Heaven´s Hat and is a mixture of Swedish folk music, jazz and improvisation. Zara, who is based in Gothenburg, has previously been active as a singer in the vocal group Envisa and in jazz groups. For two years she toured with the world-famous innovative circus Cirque du Soleil in the USA and Canada.

The Zara Tellander Band has been in existence for nearly 10 years but has taken a break since the spring of 2002, when Zara started her collaboration with the circus. She has now resumed work with her own group.

Zara Tellander is a unique person and musician: she holds a degree from the College of Music in Gothenburg in singing pedagogy, specializing in folk song. She is now in the limelight with this record, which has arrangements of Swedish folk music, but also with a good deal of freedom for the musicians, who all figure among the Swedish elite in the fields of jazz and improvisation: Johan Björklund drums, Jacob Karlzon piano, Johannes Lundberg double bass, Lisen Rylander saxophone, bass clarinet and Zara Tellander vocal.

Johan is the only original member in the band besides Zara. He has worked with Bohuslän Big Band (the Bohus County Big Band), his own group Mess, Änglaspel, and others. Pianist Jacob Karlzon is a big name in Swedish and European jazz circles, with several CDs and a great many collaboration partners behind him. Lisen Rylander is the leader of her own quartet and works together with numerous musicians, including Anders Jormin, Daniel Lemma and Jeanette Lindström. Basist Johannes Lundberg has recorded two CDs with his own band, Orca, and has played together with Billy Cobham, the Magnus Nyström Band, Lina Nyberg and others.