# New CD – 2026: Mattebo – Adami Quintet – Sketches of Cool: Review, Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2026/08/22/new-cd-2026-mattebo-adami-quintet-sketches-of-cool-review-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2026-08-22T05:00:46+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Mattebo – Adami Quintet — Sketches of Cool: A New Swedish Jazz Language in Motion**

There are albums that arrive quietly, asking the listener for patience, and then
there are albums that seem to have been waiting for precisely the right moment to
open their doors. Sketches of Cool, the new recording by the Mattebo–Adami Quintet,
belongs to the latter category. Led by tenor saxophonist Sebastian Mattebo and trombone
player Hampus Adami, the album is rooted in the long and fertile tradition of modern
Scandinavian jazz, yet it never sounds imprisoned by tradition. Instead, it treats
jazz history as living material: something to be remembered, reshaped, questioned
and brought into the present.

The title Sketches of Cool immediately suggests an aesthetic world—coolness not 
as emotional distance, but as balance, restraint, elegance and an almost architectural
sense of space. The album understands that the most compelling jazz does not always
need to shout. Sometimes it is the placement of a single note, the length of a breath,
the slight hesitation before a phrase, or the way two horns meet in harmony that
creates the deepest impression.

At the centre of this music stands the remarkable partnership between Mattebo’s 
tenor saxophone and Adami’s trombone. Their instruments occupy different areas of
the brass-and-reed spectrum, yet they communicate with an extraordinary sense of
affinity. Mattebo brings the tenor its familiar combination of warmth, muscularity
and lyrical flexibility, while Adami’s trombone contributes a darker, rounder and
more tactile voice. Together they create a sound that can be simultaneously smoky
and luminous, intimate and expansive.

Their dialogue is one of the album’s defining qualities. Rather than simply functioning
as two soloists waiting for their respective turns, the saxophone and trombone frequently
seem to think together. Phrases are passed between them, answered, transformed and
sometimes deliberately left unresolved. There is a conversational quality in the
writing and improvisation, as though the two musicians are engaged in an extended
musical discussion in which agreement is never the only objective.

**That is one of the great pleasures of Sketches of Cool: the music understands 
that jazz is conversation.**

The quintet format gives this conversation an especially rich dimension. Behind 
the two horn voices is an ensemble capable of providing both harmonic definition
and rhythmic freedom, allowing the music to breathe rather than forcing it into 
predetermined shapes. The result is a sound that feels carefully composed but never
over-controlled. Even when the arrangements are precise, there is room for surprise—
the essential element that keeps jazz alive.

The album’s relationship with the idea of “cool” is particularly fascinating. Historically,
cool jazz has often been associated with understatement, melodic sophistication 
and an avoidance of unnecessary dramatic excess. But Sketches of Cool does not attempt
to recreate an old-school cool-jazz atmosphere as a museum piece. Instead, it takes
the principles behind that tradition—clarity, space, tone, interaction and elegance—
and gives them contemporary life.

**The music therefore occupies an intriguing space between past and present.**

One can sense the great tradition of horn-led jazz behind the project, but the quintet
does not merely imitate the masters. There is an awareness of the language developed
by generations of jazz musicians, yet the musicians are clearly interested in discovering
what that language can still say today. Their answer is not nostalgia. It is renewal.

Sebastian Mattebo’s tenor playing is central to this renewal. His sound has the 
authority expected of a modern tenor player, but it is his phrasing that becomes
most memorable. He understands how to shape a line, how to let a melodic idea develop
gradually and how to allow silence to become part of the sentence. His improvisations
do not feel like collections of technically impressive gestures; they feel constructed,
with ideas introduced, examined and transformed.

There is an appealing combination of strength and vulnerability in his playing. 
The tenor can become broad and forceful, but it can also retreat into a more intimate
register, where the smallest inflection becomes meaningful. This ability to move
between intensity and understatement is particularly appropriate for an album whose
title places so much emphasis on the aesthetics of cool.

Hampus Adami, meanwhile, brings an unmistakable character to the music. The trombone
is sometimes treated in jazz as a supporting voice, a colour inside the horn section
rather than an instrument of complete expressive independence. Adami resists that
limitation. His playing gives the trombone a remarkably individual personality, 
capable of lyricism, humour, density and dramatic weight.

His relationship with Mattebo is especially rewarding because their contrasts become
complementary. Where the tenor can slice through the texture with a bright melodic
edge, the trombone can soften the contour. Where Mattebo may push a phrase forward,
Adami can give it gravity. Their interaction produces an almost cinematic sense 
of depth.

There are moments when the two horns seem to form a single composite instrument,
and others when their individuality becomes sharply apparent. It is precisely this
tension between unity and difference that makes their partnership so effective.

The rhythm section deserves equal attention. The musicians understand that accompanying
a horn-led quintet is not simply a matter of establishing tempo and harmonic support.
The rhythm section becomes an active participant in the music’s architecture. Bass
and drums provide the foundation, but they also influence the direction of the improvisations,
while the harmonic instrument contributes colours rather than merely filling spaces.

**This gives the album a sense of movement beneath its apparent calm.**

That movement is important. Sketches of Cool may favour elegance over excess, but
it is never static. Rhythmic accents emerge and disappear; harmonic expectations
are subtly redirected; melodies open into improvisational passages and then return
with altered meanings. The music has the patience of a landscape, but it also has
the restless curiosity of musicians who are listening carefully to one another.

The compositions themselves benefit from this approach. They feel less like rigid
containers for solos and more like environments in which the quintet can exist. 
A theme establishes the atmosphere, the musicians enter it, and gradually the boundaries
begin to move. The written material remains present, but improvisation gives it 
a second life.

![Variationsrik musikhelg – Allehanda.se](https://i0.wp.com/static.bonniernews.se/
ba/cee0ca5b-0e56-4270-b2cb-2aa335d1a370.jpeg?resize=640%2C960&ssl=1)

**This is where the word “sketches” in the album title becomes especially suggestive.**

A sketch is not unfinished in the negative sense. A sketch captures the essential
form of something before every detail has been fixed. It leaves room for imagination.
In jazz, that idea is fundamental. A composition can be clearly drawn, yet the musicians
must still decide what happens inside its contours.

**Sketches of Cool embraces precisely that freedom.**

The album also demonstrates the particular qualities often associated with Scandinavian
jazz: an appreciation for atmosphere, uncluttered arrangements, melodic intelligence
and the expressive potential of silence. But again, these qualities are not used
as stereotypes. The music does not depend on a vague idea of “Nordic melancholy.”
Instead, it develops a more nuanced sense of space, where warmth and coolness coexist.

**There is sunlight in this music, but it often arrives through glass.**

The emotional atmosphere is therefore subtle rather than theatrical. The listener
is not constantly instructed what to feel. Instead, the quintet creates conditions
in which feeling can emerge naturally. A melody can sound nostalgic without becoming
sentimental. A harmonic change can suggest melancholy without announcing it. A rhythmic
passage can generate excitement without resorting to obvious dramatic devices.

**That restraint is one of the album’s strengths.**

There is also an important sense of maturity in the way the musicians treat improvisation.
The best improvisation is not simply spontaneous invention; it is the ability to
hear what has already happened and respond to it. On Sketches of Cool, the musicians
seem constantly aware of the musical present. A phrase from the tenor can influence
the trombone. A rhythmic figure can alter the direction of a solo. A harmonic colour
can change the atmosphere of the entire ensemble.

**In this sense, the quintet operates almost like a single organism.**

That collective quality is perhaps more important than individual virtuosity. Certainly,
there is no shortage of instrumental skill here, but the musicians do not use virtuosity
as an end in itself. Technique serves expression. The most impressive passages are
not necessarily the fastest or most complicated ones; they are those in which the
musicians discover something together.

The album therefore rewards repeated listening.

On a first encounter, the listener may be drawn primarily to the beautiful contrast
between tenor saxophone and trombone. On subsequent listens, the rhythmic details
begin to emerge. Then the harmonic relationships become clearer. Eventually, the
spaces between the notes become as significant as the notes themselves.

**That is a sign of a successful jazz recording: it does not reveal everything immediately.**

Sketches of Cool also feels contemporary because it refuses to divide composition
and improvisation into separate worlds. The written music establishes identity, 
while improvisation provides motion. Neither dominates. Instead, they exist in a
productive tension, creating a recording that feels composed and spontaneous at 
the same time.

For Sebastian Mattebo and Hampus Adami, this is a particularly compelling musical
statement because the album presents their shared artistic vocabulary not as a collection
of stylistic references, but as a language of their own. Their voices are distinct,
yet their collaboration gives the project a coherent personality.

The result is an album of contrasts: warm and cool, composed and spontaneous, lyrical
and rhythmic, intimate and expansive, traditional and contemporary.

Most importantly, Sketches of Cool reminds us that “cool” in jazz has never truly
meant coldness. At its best, cool jazz is intensely human. It is music that trusts
the listener. It does not need to underline every emotion. It leaves room for the
imagination.

**And that room is where this quintet’s music comes alive.**

The deeper achievement of Sketches of Cool is therefore not simply that it sounds
elegant. It is that elegance becomes a method of communication. The musicians understand
that restraint can carry enormous emotional weight, that a melody can speak through
understatement, and that the most sophisticated jazz can remain immediate and accessible
without sacrificing depth.

There is a quiet confidence throughout the album. Nothing feels hurried. Nothing
feels forced. The music knows where it is going, yet it remains open to the possibility
that the journey may change along the way.

**That balance is difficult to achieve.**

The Mattebo–Adami Quintet achieves it through listening.

And perhaps that is ultimately what Sketches of Cool is about—not coolness as an
aesthetic pose, but coolness as a form of musical intelligence: knowing when to 
speak, when to answer, when to leave space, when to intensify and when simply to
let a beautiful phrase hang in the air.

Sebastian Mattebo’s tenor and Hampus Adami’s trombone become the principal voices
of this conversation, while the quintet around them provides the breathing architecture
that allows every idea to develop naturally. The album does not attempt to overwhelm
the listener. Instead, it invites the listener closer.

**The closer one comes, the more there is to discover.**

Sketches of Cool is consequently more than a collection of jazz compositions. It
is a carefully drawn portrait of contemporary ensemble jazz, one in which tradition
is not abandoned but continually reimagined. It is sophisticated without becoming
distant, lyrical without becoming sentimental, restrained without becoming passive.

**Above all, it is music with atmosphere. Music with space. Music with conversation.**

Music that understands that sometimes the coolest thing a jazz musician can do is
simply listen—and then answer with exactly the right note.

[**Buy from here – New CD**](https://sebastianmattebo.bandcamp.com/album/sketches-of-cool)

[[

### _Related_