Bosse Stenhammar, Stockholm Jazz Festival Founder, Dies at 86

Bosse Stenhammar made major contributions to Swedish jazz, blues, and song – but not from the stage, rather as an organizer and entrepreneur. In 1980, he founded the Stockholm Jazz Festival, which for many years gathered world stars to Skeppsholmen in Stockholm and offered a large audience also to domestic artists.

Stenhammar also ran from the 1970s and for several decades onwards Mosebacke etablissemang with Git Magnusson, an important scene for song, jazz, and blues on Södermalm in Stockholm.

Already in the beginning of the 1960s, Bosse Stenhammar was a leading figure for the new Swedish song wave, as one of the initiators and owners of the song barge Storken in Stockholm, where artists like Fred Åkerström and Cornelis Vreeswijk got their breakthroughs.

For his contributions to the capital's entertainment, Bosse Stenhammar received in 2006 the S:t Erik Medal, one of Stockholm's finest awards.