“A beat that goes straight to the floor”

Voices on the music and legacy of Calle Jularbo

Abstract

This article examines how musical value is ascribed to the legendary Swedish accordionist Calle Jularbo’s music in contemporary discourse. Based on responses to a web survey conducted by the Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research, it analyses how Jularbo’s music is described and evaluated by listeners. Drawing on a distinction between symbolic, aesthetic, and use values, the article explores how these dimensions are expressed in the responses.

The analysis focuses on a survey question asking why Jularbo was so popular and identifies four main areas: nostalgia, sentimentality, and authenticity; mediatisation and innovation; compositions; and danceability and rhythm. Descriptions of rhythm and swing are particularly prominent, detailed, and precise, and are repeatedly emphasised as central to Jularbo’s playing and its relation to listening and dance. The responses also show how the descriptions draw on recurring ways of talking about his playing across different contexts.

The article concludes that descriptions of Jularbo’s music repeatedly return to rhythm and swing while encompassing melodic expression, nostalgic associations, narrative formulations, and practices of listening and dance. Musical value in these descriptions is constructed and conveyed through recurring formulations that circulate between listeners, media, and memory.