Rolf Billberg

Rolf Bill Berg ( born August 22, 1930 in Lund, Sweden, † August 17, 1966 ) was a Swedish jazz saxophonist (tenor, alto).

Bill Berg was raised in Gothenburg. At 17, he played for four years in a military band clarinet, but later switched to tenor saxophone. He played in Göteborg, Visby and Borås. In 1954 he went to Stockholm to play in the big band of Simon Brehm. 1954/5, he played with saxophonist Lars Gullin, with whom he recorded also. From 1955 he lived in Copenhagen, where he played in 1956 in the big band of Ib Glindemann. At the same time he toured U.S. clubs in Germany and France in a quintet of Austrian Vibraphonistin Vera Auer, where he switched to alto saxophone. In 1957 he played in the orchestra by Jan -Erik Norin in the dance hall Nalen in Stockholm. He continued to play in groups of Gullin and much with trumpeter Allan January. He accompanied, inter alia, Lee Konitz (with whom he was often compared in style) and played with Stan Kenton in Copenhagen, where he was a member of Glindemann 1966 's Danish Radio Jazz Group last. Surprisingly, he died of a sudden illness still on the way to the hospital when he was helping his mother in the Holiday Hotel on a archipelago island in Gothenburg.

In 2004, he posthumously received the Django d' Or ( Sweden) as a legend of jazz.

Disco Graphical Notes

As a leader:

• Rolf Bill Berg ( Storyville, 1956-57 )
• Darn That Dream (Dragon Records, 1964-66 ) with Jan Allan, Allan Botschinsky, Niels -Henning Ørsted Pedersen
• Altosupremo ( Anagram Records ANA CD 7)
• Rare Danish Recordings by aSwedish Jazz Legend ( Storyville, 1956-66 )

As a sideman:

• Lars Gullin: Portrait Of My Pals ( Capitol CMCD 6310 )
• Lars Gullin: Alma Mater - Alma Almah ( Anagram ANACD 10)
• Stan Kenton Stan Kenton with the Danish Radio Big Band ( Storyville, 1966)
• Nils Lindberg: Sax Appeal & TRISECTION (Dragon 1960-63 )