Swedish baritone saxophonist and composer Lars Gullin (1928-1976) never stepped foot on American soil, where his music remains rather obscure some 46 years after his death. Alto saxophonist Randal Despommier is shining a fresh light on Gullin’s musical legacy through this fine duo project with guitarist Ben Monder.

Gullin played extensively throughout Europe in the 1950s through the mid-1970s. He was one of Sweden’s most-prominent jazz musicians of his day, working with a variety of American visitors, including Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Quincy Jones, Lee Konitz, Archie Shepp and Zoot Sims. 

Before his death at age 48, he’d composed more than 120 pieces that often-blended hard bop, classical and inspirations from Swedish folk melodies into pieces brimming with subtly and melodic delight. Despommier got his first taste of Gullin’s music when studying in Italy back in 2005. During the pandemic, he decided to explore more pages of the Gullin songbook with Monder.

The intimacy of Gullin’s compositions and the alto sax-guitar interplay here make a fascinating combination. They also reveal a different side of Monder’s playing. Gone is the hard-edged grunge sound heard in his cameo on the Stone Temple Pilots hit “Big Empty” on Despommier’s last project, Dio C’è (Outside in Music, 2021). Monder shifts with ease between providing bass lines and chordal rhythms behind Despommier, then adding his own solos based on these mostly laid-back melodies. There’s a fascinating back-and-forth approach, and the leader’s bittersweet alto sax sound is a perfect fit for this music. 

The opener, “Toka Voka Oka Boka,” is based on a Swedish folk melody that captures the brooding, gentle sound of footsteps in the forest. Monder’s deep-register bass line—darting at times—provides most of the footsteps, with Despommier adding a sense of wonderment to this back-to-nature adventure. The pair trade melodic ideas on “Igloo,” which sets Gullin’s shimmering melody atop a most familiar jazz element—the chord changes to Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.”

“Danny’s Dream” is the composer’s best-known tune, written for his oldest son. Despommier’s sound is sweet and wistful, drawing comparison to Paul Desmond on this track—and a few others. Then the duo goes up-tempo on “BBC Blues.” Their unison line digs into the melody on this 12-bar blues, the alto sax and guitar lines setting the tone until they hit a fork in the road—and start weaving melodic lines as they cross paths.

That latter approach of weaving melodic lines continues on Gullin’s classical music-inspired “Mazurka” and the waltz “Dyningar (Waves)”. On the latter gentle beauty, Despommier’s alto lines weave in and out of Monder’s chordal cushion. The ballad “Silhouette” finds the pair digging into its feelings of hope and melancholy. “I min smala säng” (In My Small Bed) is a playful up-tempo bossa nova that Gullin set to a poem by Dutch singer-songwriter Cornelis Vreeswijk.

Gullin wrote “I Hope it’s Spring for You” for a popular 1970s Swedish television series called Kvarteret Oron (The Neighborhood of Oron). It captures the reflections of a baroness who lost everything and moved into a more-modest neighborhood where she learns to be self-sufficient in her new no-frills lifestyle. The sax-guitar tandem is exquisite on this closing gem.

All things considered this is a splendid invitation for listeners to dig even further into the music of Lars Gullin.

Despommier, who grew up in Metairie, has been based in New York City since 2013, where he teaches music theory at the Third Street Music Settlement.