My name is Linus Olsson, I'm a guitarist and composer and I'm about to record a new album!

My musical start

I started learning to play guitar when I was ten years old in Sweden, my home country, first classical guitar and then electric guitar to play rock. As a teenager I discovered jazz and also started to write my own tunes.

My first professional steps

In the 90s I started to play professionally in Sweden and also abroad. First in the Canary Islands where I took the opportunity to study Spanish. In fact, I discovered that apart from music, I also had a passion for languages, especially Latin languages! Back in Sweden I still wanted to move and went to work in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the hometown of Jaco Pastorius and Cannonball Adderley.

France and the first album

In 1995 I arrived in Nice to study French. I quickly made contact with local musicians and decided to settle there. I resumed my musical studies at the Nice Conservatory and at the University. In the 2000s I became more and more interested in arranging and recorded my first album under my name, "Naima", with a sextet with among others the trumpeter François Chassagnite.

The second album

I performed all over the French Riviera to Italy with many artists and groups and started recording regularly with different projects. In 2007, I started teaching at the Conservatories of Cagnes-sur-Mer and Valbonne. I recorded "Hands Down" in 2012, the second album as a leader with Franck Amsallem on piano, Jean-Marc Jafet on bass and Nicolas Viccaro on drums.

Sweden, France and Italy

I had the chance to bring together a "European" jazz quintet with trumpeter Anders Bergcrantz, saxophonist Emanuele Cisi, double bassist Viktor Nyberg and drummer Rémi Vignolo in 2014 for two concerts in Monaco. "La Note Bleue Productions" released a live album with this group in 2015, "Dedication Blues".

New challenges

From my perspective, it is by stepping out of your comfort zone and taking on challenges that you learn new things and move forward in life. I do this by sometimes soliciting musicians more experienced than myself and self-producing albums. As for my career in artistic education, in 2018 I accepted the proposal to become Director of the Conservatory in Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Broader horizons

Over the last years I have had the opportunity to play in Paris and New York with a lot of different really good musicians. Last November after two quartet concerts in Paris I thought to myself that it is time that I record a new album with my new compositions and I want to do it with these musicians!

My way of composing

Over time and experience I believe I have learned to focus more on the essential in my writing. A musician friend once told me that he felt my tunes "play themselves." For me it's important that the musicians can express their personality and I also want to leave a lot of room for the interaction between the members of the band. This way, we have a good time on stage and we reach the audience who are there to have a good time with us and the music. For me that’s the essence of jazz!

The repertoire of this project

This repertoire reflects many of my different musical inspirations, jazz, blues, bebop, Latin rhythms etc. There is for example a song called “Wes We Can” that I composed for Wes Montgomery, another that I wrote for John Scofield called “Johnny B Sco”, and nods to Brazilian music that I love!

The casting

Stéphane Guillaume is on tenor saxophone and flute, a musician overflowing with energy and creativity.

Damien Argentieri on the organ, with huge ears, a very solid team player.

Antoine Paganotti, a very dynamic and musical drummer.

I need you!

I warmly invite you to participate in this project and this musical journey because I feel that with this team of musicians my music can evolve enormously and I need an album to present the project and find lots of great concerts!