Gunhild Carling

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Gunhild Carling

Birdland, NYC, April 22, 2018

Reviewed by Chris Struck for Cabaret Scenes

Gunhild Carling
Photo: Kevin Alvey

If saying Gunhild Carling, Sweden’s “Queen of Swing,” is good with the trumpet was enough to translate her magnificence from within the hallowed hall of Birdland to without, then that is all I would need to say. Good at trumpet.

But that isn’t enough. In reality, the stark difference between Carling and any other trumpeter goes even beyond her ability to play not one, not two, but three trumpets at once. Described as a vaudevillian for her sincere desire to have fun (starting up a dance chain to close her show, for example), she’s a woman with an other-worldly ability to siphon significant volumes of air through an instrument. And it seems like it literally doesn’t matter which instrument she chooses, as long as there isn’t a reed. However, that didn’t stop her from changing my mind about a variety of instruments.
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Decked out in a glittering red ensemble, she displayed her tremendous talent in between crooning jazz standards in a variety of ways.
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She slid the trombone deftly through note after note, making it sound sexier than a saxophone. She then took up the bagpipes and, had I closed my eyes, I might have thought someone had put a Slash solo on 2x speed. She blasted a trumpet balanced in the air, only by her lips, while plucking a tune from the double bass. Pure adrenaline seemed to be her normal level of operation and the band behind her—which consisted of piano, sax, double bass, and drums—followed her every whim.

Her pleasant accent gave her songs a dreamy old New York feel as she shared classic lines like “All of me, why not take all of me” alongside some of her originals. In her “Love Songs from the Attic,” she certainly captured that romantic imagination with the words “the frozen stars shining bright/the night that I held you tight.” Called out after her theatrical debut at Birdland for an encore, she chose a fitting standard, “La vie en rose” (Edith Piaf/Louiguy/Marguerite Monnot), and closed a cold early spring night with thoughts of drifting leaves and autumn’s love.

Chris Struck

Chris Struck's debut novel, Kennig and Gold, is due to be officially published in June 2019. He's written reviews for Cabaret Scenes since August of 2017. For more information about the writer, see StruckChris.com