Biography
Åke Hasselgård, 4 October 1922, Sundsvall, Sweden, d. 23 November 1948, Decatur, Illinois, USA. During the 40s Hasselgård played clarinet with several dance bands in his homeland, then moved to the USA in the mid-summer of 1947. Here he attracted considerable attention as not many American clarinettists had adapted to bebop as well as he had done. He played with a number of jazzmen, including Count Basie, Red Norvo and Barney Kessel before he came to the notice of Benny Goodman. Despite his reputation for not sharing the spotlight with any other clarinettist and also for not liking bebop, Goodman delighted in Hasselgård’s playing and recorded with him and Wardell Gray, another of the tiny coterie of beboppers of whom Goodman approved. Just how far into bebop Hasselgård might have taken the clarinet can only be a matter for speculation; he died as a result of a road accident in November 1948.
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