Stan Hasselgård

Åke "Stan" Hasselgård (October 4, 1922, Sundsvall, Sweden - November 23, 1948, Decatur, Illinois) was a Swedish jazz clarinetist. Hasselgård was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, and he played swing jazz in his early years before exploring bebop shortly before his death.

His father was John Levin Johansson (1886-1923), a son of Johan Ludvig Persson who later changed his name to John Hasselgård; his mother was Linda Köhler (1893-1979), a daughter of Magnus Wilhelm Köhler. Åke Hasselgård's father died in a hunting accident in Gällivare when Åke was only a year old. Hasselgård grew up in Bollnäs, Sweden, and began playing clarinet at age 16. He attended college at the University of Uppsala and played in the Royal Swingers there. In 1945 he played in a quintet led by Arthur Österwall, and founded a new Royal Swingers group that year. In 1946-47 he played with Simon Brehm's sextet alongside Gösta Eriksson (piano), Bror Hansson (trumpet), Kurt Wärngren (guitar) and Bertil Frylmark (drums).

Having achieved international renown, he moved in 1947 to New York City, and played there on 52nd Street with Jack Teagarden and Max Roach. Under the stage name Stan Hasselgard he made his acclaimed recording of Swedish Pastry, and in 1948 he joined Benny Goodman's septet, alongside Wardell Gray, Mary Lou Williams and others. His last recording session occurred on November 18, 1948; on November 23 he was killed in a car crash outside the city of Decatur in Illinois, still only 26. He was buried in the family plot of District Judge John Larson (1883-1962) in Bollnäs churchyard. Larson had become Hasselgård's stepfather when his mother remarried in 1929, six years after she had been widowed.

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