Tummel is a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

/Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 klezmer

Klezmer

Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...

 band formed in 1997. Tummel plays music that combines traditional klezmer sounds with influences from jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and the folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 of Sweden and the former Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

.

Albums

Tummel has released three albums: their debut Oy! (see image) appeared in 2001, Transit came out in 2004, and Payback Time in 2009.

As the cover of Oy! shows, Tummel combines a range of jazz instruments including flute and tuba.

Lineup

The band's lineup has changed several times. It started out as Annika Jessen on clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 and vocals, Jonathan Aisen drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

 and percussion, Pär Moberg on saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, Øvind Alexander Slaatto on helicon

Helicon

Mount Helicon is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology. With an elevation of , it is located just off the Gulf of Corinth.-Greek mythology:...

, Tobias Allvin on guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and bouzouki

Bouzouki

The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...

, Andreas Rudenå, violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 and guitar and Edin Bahtijaragić on accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

.

Reception

Chris Nickson, writing on CD Universe

CD Universe

CD Universe.com is an e-commerce site that sells music CDs and mp3 downloads, movies and video games worldwide. CD Universe was created in 1996 by founder and CEO Charles Beilman in Wallingford, Connecticut, where it is still maintained and operated...

, praises Tummel's lively performance: "A Danish/Swedish band with no deep Jewish roots playing klezmer? Well, why not, especially when it's done as well as Tummel does on Klezmer."

Robert M Tilendis, writing in Green Man Review, is impressed by Tummel:

"Think about the band playing on while the Titanic goes down. Think of some of Joel Gray's bitchier numbers in Cabaret. Think of Josephine Baker at her most outrageous taking Paris by storm. Think of a bunch of crazy Swedes with no inhibitions whatsoever getting together and letting everyone have it, right between the eyes. That might give an inkling of the tone of Tummel's Payback Time."

Tilendis continues

"It's somewhere between tango and klezmer, but it could be straight out of some Paris bistro ca. 1927, and it's no holds barred."

Tilendis in particular praises vocalist Jens Friis-Hansen:

"he reveals himself as a very talented and versatile singer".

Eelco Schilder, reviewing Tummel's Oy on Folkworld CD Reviews, writes:

"Oy is a fresh, strong cd and highly recommended to everybody who likes Klezmer music."

Ben Ohmart, writing in The Muse's Muse, comments playfully that

"The squeak of the bed (or outside swing), the dog calls, the regal fun that breezes through like a big-nosed circus on its way to a bath is just a delight from morn to night."

Alexander Agrell, reviewing Payback Time (in Swedish) in the Sydsvenskan

Sydsvenskan

-External links:*...

newspaper, notes that the lineup has changed (Annika Jessen the clarinetist has left), but awards the album a "Plus for humour, cool English lyrics and the originality of the whole thing". He hears influences from rock music, punk, heavy metal, cabaret and even Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

in the album.

A staff reporter from Skanskan.se described (in Swedish) the experience of arriving at a Tummel gig: "The desire to dance and clap in time arises immediately. Your thoughts turn to blazing camp fires and swirling skirts."

Sydsvenskan articles

• 'Min playlist med Louisa Lyne' ('My playlist with Louisa Lyne') Sydsvenskan.se. Emma Thörnkvist. 4 February 2011. (Journalist Emma Thörnkvist lists the band's website as "the best site".)

• 'Lockar och skägg' ('Locks and Beards') Sydsvenskan.se. Alexander Agrell. (Tummel used as a reference when describing another klezmer band in a review)

• 'Babian - more wild than tame' Sydsvenskan.se. Håkan Engström. 4 February 2009. 'Husband på Apornas planet' ('House band on the Planet of the Apes') (an article and a blog post, both by Sydsvenskan's regular rock critic Håkan Engström, about the band "Babian" in which it is specially noticed that some of members of that band are former Tummel musicians)

• 'Sju timmars vemodigt sväng' ('Seven hours of melancholy swing'). Sydsvenskan.se. Per Ek. 1 February 2009. (Article about the annual klezmer festival of Lund, where one of the other participating artists is quoted as saying that "many are probably coming just to see Tummel")

Skanskan articles

• 'Musikaliskt tumlande' ('Musical Tumbling/Tummel-ing') Skanskan.se. 23 January 2011.

• 'Ny röst åt Tummel' ('A new voice for Tummel') Skanskan.se. 2 April 2009.

• 'Tummel i Eslövs Medborgarhus' ('Tummel in Eslöv's Town Hall') Skanskan.se. 1 April 2009.

• 'Läger och konsert med Tummel' ('Camps and Concerts with Tummel') Skanskan.se. 4 December 2008.

• 'Klezmermusik och balkanpop till Tygegården' ('Klezmer Music and Balkan Pop at Tygegården') Skanskan.se. Evelina Olsson. 8 September 2008

Television appearances

• 'Veckans konsert' ('Concert of the Week') Swedish national television. 6 November 2001.

a performance by the band has been broadcast as "Veckans konsert" (concert of the week) on Swedish national television