Sven-Åke Johansson

Sven-Åke Johansson was a Swedish drummer, accordionist, composer and poet, born in Mariestad in 1943. He settled in Berlin in the late 1960s and was among the first European drummers to play free jazz, recording For Adolphe Sax (1967) and Machine Gun (1968) with Peter Brötzmann. In 1972 he made Schlingerland, an early solo free drum record, issued on his own SÅJ label. From 1976 he kept a long duo with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and later worked with Jan Jelinek, among many others.