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This was from a live set with a guitar trio, recorded by an audience member at a regional street jazz festival. It's part of a longer arrangement, though the recording only captured one section. The gear is my 1970s Gibson Johnny Smith through a Henriksen Blu Six.
"Dear Old Stockholm" was suggested by the bassist for inclusion in the gig. Before that, I hadn't heard the song so set out to explore it and learn to play it in a trio setting. The bassist and I practiced it together a few times, and I also used iReal at home for getting comfortable with the form. Although the three of us have played a couple of other gigs together and we jam regularly, we hadn't played it as a trio prior to this gig, with the drummer joining us for the first time on the gig. Despite my preparation, there were a couple of times that the bassist and drummer had to "rescue" me, but thankfully nothing too serious. I feel fortunate to have opportunities to perform with experienced musicians.
"Dear Old Stockholm" comes from a Swedish folk song, and was recorded a few times as a kind of a vocal ballad by Swedish singers. It was initially done in a jazz setting, as far as I can tell, in the early 1950s by Miles Davis and Stan Getz, and the German pianist Jutta Hipp did a piano trio recording in 1956, and the Paul Chambers quartet in 1957. Later recordings include John Coltrane, and Stan Getz with Chet Baker. Tommy Flanagan recorded a pensive take on piano, and Hideo Date recorded a very original solo guitar arrangement. The pianist Eddie Higgins has a lovely trio version, while Jack Wilkins did a punchy yet subdued combo take, while the Osaka Jazz Channel recorded a live quartet version. There's several big band takes, and some by student groups. Overall, in general there's a lot of variety in the way it has been arranged and approached by jazz musicians.
The tune is in the old Real Book, the Hal Leonard Real Book and the Jazz Standard Bible (which we use in Japan). The charts are very similar, although the recent HL Real Book notes an altered Dm on some parts. Our bassist modified the form somewhat from the Jazz Standard Bible source, and added a rubato intro and outro using a bow (which are missing in the above recording). Overall, I found "Dear Old Stockholm" to be an inspiring workout in D minor, with different sections emphasizing harmonic minor or dorian. The melody reminded me a little bit of the melody for "Alone Together," which I've also done with the same trio elsewhere, so I practiced them both side by side to be sure that I'm not settling into the same more or less Dm ad-lib and trying instead to preserve the distinctive features of each tune. Coltrane played around with the form and melody quite a lot on his excursion into "Dear Old Stockholm," although many versions among those that I listened to keep it for the most part as written. It's been done at various tempos, from a ballad to something more up. Even though the bassist wanted to render it in a much faster tempo, our trio settled into a moderate groove, which was partly because I don't have the chops to play things at very fast speeds. I looked more toward the way that Paul Chambers set the tempo, and on that 1957 record I was especially inspired by Kenny Burrell's playing.
When playing in a trio setting, I prefer to state the melody initially in a lower register, as in our recording above. To me, there's something sonically appealing about the lower end of the guitar range. I also found a few places to intersperse some chord stabs. Truth be told, I much prefer to do the old jazz standards and swing tunes with more predictable forms in factors of four. And, as an "amateur" player (in the sense of Merrifield "the joys of doing what you love"), I find formal gigging very stressful and so I have to really work on getting the less straight forward tunes together for a performance. At one point, we were trying to do "Armando's Rhumba" and "Bolivia," but my playing was not there. I do, however, find tunes like "Dear Old Stockholm" (and "Alone Together," to some extent) to be useful ways to step out of the predictable forms and into something a bit irregular. For formal gigs, at least in my limited experience, we do what works best for everyone. At the same time, I don't play many formal gigs, preferring the unpredictable informal feeling of jam sessions. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for listening and reading!
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05-09-2026 08:53 AM
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Love that tune. Sounded really good and dig the use of the thumb.
That you ended so soon was slightly surprising.
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Thank you for listening and for the kind words. I appreciate it!
Originally Posted by charlieparker
Although I've played with a pick in the past, a couple of years ago I moved to thumb only and it feels more comfortable and natural to me. I'm glad you dig it!
About the abrupt ending, the clip is from a longer performance that also included a rubato introductory section and another rubato closing section.
Thanks again for listening!
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