Bengan Janson

Born in Stockholm in 1963 as Bengt Åke Janson, Bengan Janson developed an early practice of the accordion before settling in Järvsö in 1979, where his encounter with jazz pianist Gösta Svensson marked his musical path. Bengan Janson works at the crossroads of Swedish folk, the tradition of Scandinavian ballads, jazz and, in places, a repertoire closer to pop and rock, with a playing style that emphasizes melody, rhythmic relief and the interplay between popular and art-music styles. In the late 1980s he joined the group Östen med Resten and went on to pursue a career in which the accordion plays a central role both in duos and in collective projects. He appears notably alongside Kalle Moraeus in Kalle & Bengan, and with Jan Lundgren, Ulf Wakenius, Per Gudmundson, Anne Sofie von Otter and Björn Skifs. Among Bengan Janson’s verifiable recordings are Live in Köttsjön (2001) and Julens bästa vänner (2005) with Kalle Moraeus, Bengan Jansson / Jan Lundgren / Ulf Wakenius (2012), and Hjeltamôs (2018) with Per Gudmundson — an album that well illustrates Bengan Janson’s place in the exchanges between Swedish traditional music and improvisation.