ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the transnational character of the exchange of jazz between Sweden and the United States. It argues that Swedish jazz cannot be seen as only a local jazz culture because it is intertwined with other local jazz cultures. The American understanding of Swedish jazz is compared with the way in which Swedes followed the American reception of the jazz recorded in Sweden. The research demonstrates that in the United States, the foreign character of Swedish jazz was underlined, which the chapter connects to the ideology of American exceptionalism. Musicians and critics from the United States stimulated Swedes to play a form of jazz different from American jazz and to take inspiration from Swedish folk music. The chapter concludes in a wider discussion of the importance of a transnational study of jazz in general. Taking the borders of a nation-state as a starting point for discussions of jazz is problematic as they limit perspectives in studying jazz as many actors in the jazz world constantly crossed borders and jazz had been a global style of music long before the rise of free jazz.
