Here’s a little background of who I am:
I grew up in a suburb of Stockholm called Bredäng. I started playing drums at the age of 10 and got to play in a big band at 12, playing mostly the music of Count Basie’s repertoire. I stayed in that band for several years and it was a good school and it gave me a natural swing feel. After a few years I started playing hard rock with Pontus Norgren (now in Hammerfall). When I was 18 i lived in Canada and got a part time job with a top forty band called “Energy”. We often played Thursday to Saturday in bars in Quebec and Ontario. I remember one night at “Barrymore’s” because Buddy Rich’s band was there the night before – huge! When I came back to Sweden I did my military service in the “Musikpluton” and learned some useful rudiments from drum teacher Tommy Törner who is a legendary march drummer in Sweden and a great man. In the “Musikpluton” I also met Daniel Kåse who is the chief percussionist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Stockholm. We became good friends and he introduced me to jazz. I fell in love with jazz and since then tt’s my favourite music. But I can honestly say that I like a lot of different music and really dig some of the bands that my children listen to, like the British band McFly and the hard rock band Avenged Sevenfold! The great drummer Ronnie Gardiner became my mentor in my quest to become a better drummer. Then, I studied jazz at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm for four years.
I have been a freelance drummer for a long time now and have been working and making recordings with different artists along the way including American singer Stacy Kent, Georgie Fame, Barbara Morrison, Clark Terry, Monica Borrfors, Bernt Rosengren, Amanda Sedgwick, Sveriges Jazzband, Bosse Broberg’s “Nogenja”, Peter Getz, the Stockholm Jazz Trio, Peter Nordahl Trio, Magnus Lindgrens storband, Måns Zelmerlöw, Hayati Kafé, my own octet “Jesper Kviberg Social Club of Music”, Gugge Hedrenius Big Blues Band (on one recording with Hank Crawford), Bengt-Arne Wallin, Georg Riedel, Bengt Hallberg, Birgit Lindberg, Ann Blom Quartet, Warren Wache, Lisa Lövbrand, Håkan Nyqvist’s “Hornkraft”, The Philharmonic Orchestra of Stockholm, Bengt Lindqvist, Lovisa Lindqvist, Viktoria Tolstoy, Andreas Pettersson, Ulf Johansson Werre, Klas Lindqvist, Anders Widmark, Leo Lindberg, Kathy Morrow, and many more beautiful musicians and artists.
Last year I worked a lot with the Stockholm Jazz Trio. We made two CD’s. “Getz Together” with singer Peter Getz and “Trio Reflections” just by the trio. “Trio Reflections” got very good reviews in jazz magazines and was voted the best Swedish jazz CD release of 2013 by the critics of “DIG Music”.
Since last year I also work one day a week as a drum teacher at “Lilla Akademien”, a music school in Stockholm.
Jesper Kviberg 