ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the first mention of Swedish jazz musicians in American jazz magazines. In exploring the network through which Swedish jazz entered the limelight in the United States, the chapter discusses the importance of the transnational contacts that record companies established and developed. It puts the American interest in Swedish jazz in a historical and economic context and explains that it was cheap for American record companies to issue foreign recordings. American labels could request specific recordings and often paid Swedish labels by giving them access to their American catalogs. By analyzing the strong network of Swedish label Metronome established, such deals are analyzed. Central figures like Swedish-American Claes Dahlgren and British-American jazz critic Leonard Feather were important in establishing these deals but also managed to create publicity in the American jazz press. Here, the discourse of Swedish jazz as a more or less uniform group that consisted of good, modern jazz was formed.
