‘Paint It Blue’ is dedicated to the man who, for many still today embodies the central figure at the genre’s source: Julian Edwin ‘Cannonball’ Adderley (1928 – 1975). Maybe he didn’t invent Funk. Together with his co-musicians in his 60s quintet, Cannonball’s alto sax style, his attitude, humour great musicality, and his love for his audience allowed him to become a synonym for funk.

Nils Landgren, born in 1956, grew up between the music of his father, a Jazz cornet-player, and the music of his grandfather, a pastor on the island Gotland. He first heard Cannonball Adderley on ‘Kind Of Blue’. In this Miles Davis Sextet of the late 1950s, they were all together: “Miles, the master of beauty. Coltrane, the master of sound. And Cannonball Adderley, the master of funk,” Nils Landgren writes in the liner notes to ‘Paint It Blue’. From that point on, he procured everything of Cannonball’s that he could lay his hands on. “Without the soul of Cannonball it would have been impossible to form my group Funk Unit many years later,” he writes.

Landgren edited Cannonball’s live concert announcements into his own arrangements, so that the time jump between the original and the nouveau arrangement appears non-existent. An effective device that literally brings this revered musician into the fold of Nils Landgren’s Funk Unit.

Whoever speaks of Cannonball Adderley, must also speak equally of his brother Nat Adderley. It was an obvious thought to invite the most important brothers in Jazz after the Adderleys to guest on ‘Paint It Blue’; with the high energy Funk-Jazzrock of the late 70s, the Brecker brothers have proven worthy heirs to the Adderleys. Both of them solo on Landgren’s track ‘You Dig’.

The equally noble and forcible groove is delivered by the sideman to countless Soul greats, Bernard Purdie. Bernard’s own stylistically related production with the Brecker Brothers, Nils Landgren, amongst others is now strongly in the public consciousness on ‘Soul To Jazz’. Much like Cannonball Adderley, Airto Moreira owes important impulses to his time with Miles Davis.

‘Paint It Blue’ is possibly Nils Landgren’s most lavish record to date and with some certainty also his best. Landgren’s playing is cool and smooth, with warmth, temperament and thought. Here his sound combines organically with everything he surrounds himself with. The album sounds as if the recordings for it were a pure joy for all participants. Nils Landgren has the prerequisite for serious fun, the gift of intelligent serenity.