The Bitter Funeral Beer Band
(1981-86)

Upon my return from Ghana i tried to apply some of what I learned in various musical groupings, among them Archimedes Badkar, but after some time a bigger group grew out of that to specifically create music around the drumming (mostly Ewe) and funeral music from the north of Ghana.

This is from our very first concert at Fasching in Stockholm. Drummers Bosse Skoglund and Thomas Mera Gartz, Sigge Krantz on bass and guitar, Mattias Hellden on cello, Thord Bengtsson guitar and violin, Anita Livstrand vocal and ko-gyil, Kalle Eriksson (soloing above) and Tommy Adolfsson on trumpet plus Jörgen Adolfsson, Ulf Wallander, Christer Bothén and Kjell Westling on reeds joined me in that first edition of the band.

We released our first album (left) on ECM in 82 and toured europe in the fall, playing at the German Jazz festival in Frankfurt. Don Cherry took part on the ECM album as well as the concert in Frankfurt that was recorded by Hessischer Rundfunk for radio and TV. They have kindly permitted Country & Eastern to release the concert on cd. Which we did in the fall of 2007. The album was just nominated for a swedish Grammy. Most of the concert can be seen at YouTube. Here is a video of the opening introduction:

	and here are some of Paul Deker's photos from the Frankfurt concert in 1982: (all copyright Paul Deker)