Between 1949 and 1959, Sweden experienced what has often been called the Golden Age of Swedish Jazz. After World War II, visiting stars such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, and James Moody discovered a thriving local scene, where musicians such as Arne Domnérus, Rolf Ericson, Lars Gullin, Bengt Hallberg, Putte Wickman, Reinhold Svensson, Carl-Henrik Norin, Rolf Blomquist, Gunnar Svensson, and many others were forging a distinctly Swedish jazz identity.

Rooted in swing but open to the innovations of modern jazz, Swedish musicians especially embraced the cool movement while preserving their own melodic sensibility, often enriched by folk and classical traditions. The scene thrived thanks to clubs like Nalen in Stockholm, forward-looking labels such as Metronome, Artist, Cupol, Sonet, and Gazell, and frequent national radio broadcasts.

Critics internationally known, such as Leonard Feather and George T. Simon, were quick to praise Swedish jazz as the best outside the United States. Recordings from this era, many of them released on American labels such as Prestige and Blue Note, revealed a combination of discipline, lyricism, and creativity that earned Sweden world wide recognition as a true jazz nation.

—Jordi Pujol (Taken from the back-liner notes of the compilation FSRCD 1167)