Last week I played two nights at the brand new concert venue, Hornstull Strand Etablissemang, in Stockholm, with the band Oskar Schönning. A couple of years ago, the club Ugglan (The Owl) gathered free jazz lovers, indie kids and Buddhists (among others) around a ping pong table and Czech beer in this underground boules hall. Sounds like some beautiful Alice in Wonderland-tale...

Sadly it was too beautiful to be true, and had to close down due to mysterious reasons. Anyway, now at last Ugglan has found a new home, at Hornstull Strand, and hundreds of free jazz lovers, indie kids and Buddhists who wandered the streets of Stockholm without goal since the loss of old Ugglan finally found something to fill their lives with. Here's a link to their new home:
www.hornstullstrand.se.

Speaking of Oskar Schönning and new places to hang out, we spent last evening at Tellus, an old cinema in Midsommarkransen, a tiny cozy suburb south-west of Stockholm. After living in this neighbourhood for soon to be two years, I feel ashamed that last night was only my second visit to this beautiful place. Shame on me. A week ago, Mattias Ståhl trio played chamberesque jazz, and last night a Bond movie was showing. They do chess nights, art shows and lectures too. And bake extraordinary chocolate cakes. Mmm.
www.tellusbio.nu

I like mixing things. And both Ugglan and Tellus are good places because they mix good things. Ping pong and free jazz. Cake and Bond. I remember a video store in my old neighbourhood that offered dried pigs ears and dog collars on top of the videos. I never tried the ears, but I kind of liked them being there, somehow helping me choose which movie I was going to watch.

And here's our band Oskar Schönning mixed together with some fine line dancing:

A film by: Christoffer Dymling, Johanna Hofman-Bang, Erik Torell.

A six-hour flight south of Stockholm lies Damascus, which we know very little of. We don't really know much of what we are going to do here either, except play some concerts, travel by minibus, enjoy good food and try to avoid food poisoning. Our man in Syria, Mr. Saadou, has been somewhat hard to get in contact with, but he has bought us four plane tickets with Syrian Arab Airlines, so we trust that he made some more arrangements than that.

We arrive at midnight, greeted by a nice tired man from the Ministry of Culture and his two drivers (drivers and cars actually on loan from the Prime Minister, thank you Prime Minister of Syria). The French Palace, our hotel, is not a palace, and not French. Anyhow, I sleep like a baby.

Our first mission in Syria is to find a double bass. The dean of Damascus Conservatory of Music is a friend of Mr. Saadou's, so that's the place to look. At school, we learn that the dean earns approximately 250 Euros a month. It's pretty amazing that they can afford to lend us their double bass. The conservatory is in constant need of instruments, which are terribly expensive with Syrian money. If you happen to keep a French horn, cembalo or good violin in your attic, please consider donating them to Damascus!

The first gig is at a hotel in Aleppo, six hours from Damascus by bus. Everything is well prepared except for the press for the concert. When we start playing, one hour after showtime, Mr. Saadou has collected three hungry listeners from the streets. With five guys doing the sound, eight is a crowd! It's a good feeling to finally make some music, even if I secretly had hoped for our first concert in the Arab world to be more of an ecstatic prayer meeting.

Jonas and Nils on stage in Aleppo

Mr. Simon, chief sound tech for the night, wraps up the evening by taking us to a fancy restaurant where he plays non-stop-oriental-easy-listening together with a mysterious lady dressed in black (Simon is a really nice guy, and he has a cool feature — a pair of gigantic ear lobes. He looks like an Arabic Buddha. Nothing can bother Mr. Simon. After meeting him, I start seeing very big ear lobes all over the place - is it an Arab thing?).

We are visiting Syria on a mission for world peace, sent out by the Danish organization "Kulturmöde över graenser". To be honest, I haven't really been giving the peace thing much of a thought before leaving; I just wanted to go on tour...but now I'm starting to think more about it. It's pretty cool.

We're following a long tradition here, jazz people being sent out to melt the ice in far-a-way-places. Duke Ellington touring Iraq in the 60s, Charles Lloyd quartet being the first American band on Soviet soil, and now The Stoner preventing any ice to form to start with. I like it. Send in the clowns!!!

Making friends at the market

Al-Swaidaa is our last destination before going home. We're playing in this big political-meeting-kind-of-place, and ten minutes before showtime there's only a handful of people scattered along the last rows of the hall. I ask our interpreter why they won't come to the front, and she explains that the first rows always are reserved for big shots like the mayor or his family. Anyway, the empty holes soon fill up (I can't see any mayor though...), and we play for a big, beautiful crowd. Tonight I get my ecstatic prayer meeting!

After the concert, our friend Abdul tells us that "they never heard syncopations like that in Al-Swaidaa". Cool. From Africa to the US, via Sweden to the Middle East, syncopations are now spreading all over the globe...

Mr Abdul also delivers my finest Middle East moment, singing his favorite Stoner tunes to us before the gig. It still sends chills down my spine, thinking about this tall bearded Arab guy doodeling Silent Superman in a Syrian backroom.

www.nilsberg.com