Italian drummer-composer-educator Cecilia Sanchietti, the art director of JazzMine Network, an assosiation focused on gender equailtu in improvising arts, founded her Swedish Quintet in early 2020 after performing in the 2019 edition of the Stockholm Women’s International Jazz Festival. The quintet – vocalist Anna Lundqvist, reeds player Linus Lindblom, pianist Simon Westman and double bass player Josef Kallerdahl, evolved through several meetings in Rome, Stockholm and Gothenburg, where it recorded «Postcard from Gamla Stan», the third album of Sanchietti as a bandleader.

Sanchietti wrote the eight compositions and managed to bring Italian optimist sensuality and almost effortless melodic touches to the Nordic reserved lyricism. The Swedish Quintet sounds like a real working band with a clear identity and dynamics of its own. Sanchietti is a generous and democratic bandleader and her compositions demand personal contributions and interpretations from all the musicians. Sanchietti identifies these qualities as part of her kind approach: «Kindness is experienced as the ability to open up to others and return in terms of new paths, relationships, new possibilities. Kindness, which if done in sincerity always comes back». And this idea is expressed in the touching song «Why Not».

Sanchietti set the atmosphere of each piece in light playful grooves, and plays in an elegant and tasteful manner, always serving the music. Lundqvist employs her wordless vocals as an instrument that intensifies the emotional essence of the music, but the music avoids falling into sentimental voids, despite the nostalgic title of the album. Sanchietti Swedish Quintet proves that the sun can shine in Gamla Stan even on the most freezing day of the year.

Eyal Hareuveni  

Cecilia Sanchietti (dr), Anna Lundqvist (v), Linus Lindblom (ts, e-cl), Simon Westman (p), Josef Kallerdahl (b)