British actor Matt Berry read a hilariously scathing letter that cartoonist and record collector Robert Crumb wrote to Swedish jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson in 2014 regarding a CD sent for review. Crumb essentially told Gustafsson that he didn’t care for his playing in a rather bombastic manner.
The CD you sent me of your own saxophone playing and some Swedish modern jazz. I gotta tell you on the cover of the CD of your sax playing, which is black and has no text on it, I wrote in large block capital letters in silver ink “torturing the saxophone”.
After receiving this response, Gustafsson hilariously named his next album Torturing the Saxophone.
In 2014, in honour of this critique, Gustafsson named his next album ‘Torturing the Saxophone’, and proudly reprinted this letter amongst the liner notes.
This performance took place at a 2022 Letters Live event at the Freemason’s Hall in London.
