Elisabeth the Artist
Glorious Creative Wise
“Playing the gramophone, dance, sing and spin around … that`s fun”, wrote Elisabeth Melander’s mother in the family album.
The picture of the three year old, so comfortably performing with the radio gramophone, certainly appears as an hint of how her life as a singer and artist would come to be.
Elisabeth Melander was born and raised in Boden in northen Sweden where her home was filled with music and dancing.
”My grandfather had a fantastic voice and he played the harmonica with a great swing. My other grandfather was a good singer and played the guitar. Jazz was something I got intravenously by all the records my mother used to play … they were spinning on the radio gramophone all the time”, Elisabeth says giggling.
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Different music traditions has always been important in her family and Elisabeth played a lot of theatre in school, sang, played the recorder, violin and guitar in the local music school, played in a string orchestra, was a student in a dancing school and performed when and wherever she had the opportunity.
After winning the national Song Contest ”Star -73” in Stockholm, she received at major record contract, five LPs and ten singles for the international record company EMI.
After one single and one LP she said thanks but no thanks!
”The songs and lyrics handed to me was not what I expected. I wanted to get much more out of my music and needed some time to reflect and find my own way. Even though I am very open minded, It´s not easy to change direction when my inner beliefs are challenged”.
Elisabeth is incurably curious, and is always striving to develop herself as a singer.
”I think that´s why I have tried various genres, different ways of singing and different instruments”.
She studied three years classical music at that music collage in Piteå followed by a one year break to work with a famous Swedish vocal group. She continued her studies with four years at Göteborg Academy of Music, where she graduated as a teacher in classical singing and ensemble. Improvisation, jazz, art music, composition and eurhythmics was added after her graduation.
Influences
Elisabeth’s strong interest for the emphasis on both words and music, has its origin from her family and the great musicians she heard from numerous records.
Interwieved in the Swedish Jazzmagazine OJ she says:
”My deep interest for lyrics comes from both my mother and my grandfather. He was an incredible storyteller specially when he sang old Swedish folk songs. My mother, on the other hand, inspired me to find out what lyrics was all about. She made me write poems and small verses.
If Ella Fitzgerald, Sara Vaughan, Monica Zetterlund, Astrud Gilberto and Barbra Streisand were the female influences, the male were Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker.
”Eventually I also fell for the 60s an 70s music”, says Elisabeth. ”My primary role models were Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Quincy Jones, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock”.
Artistically
During the 80s and 90s Elisabeth recorded and made many TV and radio programs, both in Sweden and abroad.
”It was incredibly fun and rewarding to work together with some of our greatest jazz musicians. I was a member of several groups and ensembles, as well as vocalist in Mikael Råberg Elite Big Band for six years”.
”Another exciting engagement during many years was music theatre for and with children. Together we wrote the lyrics, music and manuscripts, I managed scenography, costumes and even directed”.
Elisabeth was also engaged as a singer and actor at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm for Ingmar Bergman’s production of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”. The production toured six month playing at the national theatres in Europe.
Other examples of Elisabeth´s broad range:
- Started two bands with members from Sweden and Denmark, of which one was an electrified chamber music quintet ant the other a soul-funk group.
- Performed at a major music festival in Kunming in China, where she also lectured at Yunnan Art University.
- Started the vocal gospel sextet - ”Colourful”
- Two major concert tours with big band, ”A tribute to Ella Fitzgerald” and ”Count Basie 100 years”.
- Recorded ”A Splendored Thing” - an innovative jazz collaboration between students and teachers at the Academy of Music in Malmö
- Jazz and church music tours in Sweden and abroad.
- Opened a club and stage for different genres, from jazz and opera to hard rock, blues and soul … just to give her students an opportunity to perform in public.
Leif H Gustafson