Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Putte Wickman was born Hans Olof Wickman on September 10, 1924 in Falun, Sweden and grew up in Borlänge, Sweden where his parents hoped he would become a lawyer. He nagged them to allow him to go to high school in Stockholm, Sweden and when he arrived in the capital he still did not know what jazz was and probably the only 15 year-old who did not.

Not having access to a piano in Stockholm, he was given a clarinet by his mother as a Christmas present. As it turned out, he started to hang out with the worst elements in the class, those with jazz records. Wickman considered himself self-taught, having never taken classes on the instrument.

Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman were the role models for the young Wickman, who, in 1944 had turned to music full-time. He was taken on as band leader at Stockholm’s Nalen. He led a band at Nalen for eleven years, and during the 1960s he ran the big band at Gröna Lund and at Puttes, the club he co-owned, at Hornstull in Stockholm.

In 1994, Wickman received the Illis Quorum gold medal, today the highest award that can be conferred upon a private Swedish citizen by the government of Sweden.

Clarinetist Putte Wickman, who was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and active as a musician until shortly before his passing, died on February 14, 2006.

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