By Andrew Poretz***Swedish (now California-based) musical sensation, Gunhild Carling, and the Carling Family (about half of them present for this engagement), returned to Birdland Theater with their wild, throwback vaudeville act for a sold-out, three-night run (this is their only New York appearance currently scheduled for 2025). Carling is a multi-talented singer-songwriter and 
autodidact instrumentalist who incredibly seems to have taught herself nearly every instrument ever made—and plays them all at an advanced level with no formal training. Nearly everyone in the extended Carling family plays multiple instruments and swaps them out with each another throughout their shows.
For these performances, non-family members Conal Fowkes (piano), Neal Caine (double bass) and Daniel Glass (drums) provided rhythm section accompaniment. Family members, brother Max (clarinet), sister Gerd (saxophone) and daughter Idun (trombone, trumpet, vocals) were front and center with the star; mother Aina provided banjo support on several tunes. The beautiful Idun is also a rising star on her own as both a musical performer and Swedish film and television actress.
The band played a variety of traditional jazz standards and original compositions by the leader, many with New Orleans-style arrangements. The band opened big with “Miller Avenue” (Gunhild Carling), a song with a similar chord structure to “Bill Bailey,” with Gunhild on cornet and Idun on trombone. The three Carling women combined for an Andrews Sisters-style harmony section here that highlighted their exceptional musicality. Idun sang 
and played trombone on a spirited rendition of Jack Teagarden’s “Meet Me Where They Play the Blues,” her vocal timbre and singing style matching that of many current pop stars.
With Fat Tuesday only days away, a musical march through the audience was inevitable. The band celebrated with Johnny Mercer’s “While We Danced at The Mardi Gras,” a fun number that had Gunhild and Max juggling. Max then led a rousing “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” (Sholom Secunda, Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin) that really had the joint jumping. One does not generally associate “medieval” recorders with bossa nova, but Gunhild’s rendition of “Wave” (Antonio Carlos Jobim) changed that. Her ending quote of “Smoke on the Water” was a fun touch.
As is usual in a Carling Family show, the members kept raising the bar on their inspired musical shenanigans with a jam number that included a Cab Calloway-like audience call and response, a dazzling piano round-robin of Gerd, Max, Fowkes and eventually Gunhild joining in to take a turn. She upped the ante entirely by playing three trumpets simultaneously, one of her trademark, jaw-dropping routines. Gunhild introduced “Our First Kiss,” a song she wrote “yesterday,” inspired by being in 
Manhattan. She began on piano, and in mid-song improbably grabbed Caine’s bass and somehow played bass and trumpet simultaneously, with the trumpet vertically standing on her face. Though showmanship and novelty sometimes trumps the music in this act, the music itself never disappoints.
Another great highlight and Gunhild trademark is making bagpipes into an unlikely vehicle for rock and roll, with her original “Bagpipe Blues.” For a wild, “kitchen sink” finale, “Hot Head” (Gunhild Carling), Gunhild and Idun swapped trumpet and trombone on a fast-paced delivery, with mom moving to banjo and even tap dancing on this number. As expected, Gunhild Carling and Family delivered a terrific set filled with out-of-this-world showmanship, musical prowess, humor and outlandish surprises. Carling’s song choices were effective and entertaining, with her own songs well-crafted and catchy. It’s impossible to walk out of Birdland in a downer of a mood after a Carling show!
Photos by Andrew Poretz
