Lars Gullin born 4 May 1928

 Lars Gunnar Victor Gullin (4 May 1928 – 17 May 1976) was a Swedish jazz saxophonist.

Lars Gullin was born in Visby, Sweden. His great musicality showed itself early on and at the age of 13 he was accepted as a student at the 18 Music Corps in Visby, where he played bugle, then horn and clarinet, being his main instrument. By then, like many others of that generation, he had also learned to play the accordion. He moved to Stockholm in 1947 to study classical piano playing with the intention of becoming a concert pianist. He was already interested in folk music, but above all in National Romantic music, the branch of classical music that is often coloured by melodies reminiscent of folk songs. He planned on a classical career, studying privately with classical pianist Sven Brandel, before turning to jazz in the late 1940's.

He played with the orchestras of Charles Redland (as a pianist. 1947-8), and Arthur and Seymore Osterwall's orchestras (1949-51), changing from alto to baritone saxophone, an instrument that he becomes one of the absolute best at. He next played with Arne Domnerus's orchestra (1951-3), the group mainly performed at Nalen, a leading dance spot in Stockholm. He then  worked freelance and began to work with visiting American musicians, recording with James Moody, Zoot Sims and Clifford Brown. Most importantly, he first performed with Lee Konitz in 1951, an association which was to be repeated several times in future years.

                                       

Gullin formed his own group in 1953, probably the only regular group he was to lead. It was short-lived, breaking up that November, after Gullin was responsible for causing the group to be involved in an automobile accident, although no one was seriously hurt. The next year, 1954, he won the best newcomer award in the American DownBeat magazine, after two March 1953 Swedish sessions were leased and issued by Contemporary Records as a 10” LP. Later Gullin albums were leased to Atlantic Records in the United States. Gullin toured several European countries with Chet Baker in October 1955, in a group which was marred by tragedy; it was Gullin who found the body of the group's pianist Dick Twardzik, victim of a heroin overdose, on 21 October, in a Paris hotel room.

Although at first influenced by the cool jazz of Miles Davis. Lee Konitz, and Stan Getz, he soon developed a highly personal, expressive style, both as a soloist and as a composer, and became one of the most highly regarded jazz musicians in Europe. In 1954 he became the first European performer to win a jazz poll in the USA (in Down Beat's "new star" category); the same year he began a series of successful European tours. The remainder of Gullin’s career was blighted by his own narcotics problems, and sometimes he survived on artists' grants from the Swedish government. He was restricted by illness for much of the later part of 1958. During most of 1959, Gullin, was active in Italy, he played with Chet Baker again and with the jazz alto saxophonist (and businessman) Flavio Ambrosetti, making radio broadcasts with him in Lausanne, Switzerland. In the 1960s, he continued to work occasionally with leading American players, including Archie Shepp, with whom he recorded in 1963.

From the mid-1960's Gullin devoted himself mainly to composition, showing a fine sense for scoring. His largest work is Jazz amour affair (1971) for symphony orchestra and jazz soloists. One of his last major statements was his Aeros aromatic atomica suite recorded in 1973. His last performance abroad was in Germany in 1976. Gullin died of a heart attack in Vissefjärda, Sweden on 17 May 1976, brought on by his long-term addiction to methadone. When he died at 48 years of age, he left a legacy of more than 120 compositions and 450 recorded melodies and, besides that, hundreds of hours of fabulous private and radio/TV recordings from all over Europe. The film Sven Klang's Combo (Sven Klangs kvintett, 1976) is a fictionalised version of the Swedish jazz scene of the 1950s, and the saxophonist Lars is based on Gullin.

His son, Peter Gullin, (12 April 1959, Milan, Italy – 7 October 2003, Uppsala, Sweden) was also a baritone saxophonist and composer. The elder Gullin’s composition "Peter of April" was dedicated to him. The tune "Danny's Dream" was dedicated to his first son Danny Gullin and "Gabriella" to his daughter, Gabriella Gullin (born 1961), a composer and conductor.

(Edited from New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Lars Gullin Society and Wikipedia)