Bitter Funeral Beer Band was a unique band with an early world music with an own identity that mixes african funeral music and improvisation with a nordic touch that has not existed before or after the few years in the 80’s that the band was active. Led by Bengt Berger who had studied a couple of years in Ghana, the band based a lot of the music on the funeral music concept of the Lo-Birifor people of northern Ghana.The band did its first cd, Bitter Funeral Beer, on ECM and then one more, Praise Drumming (vinyl only) on the swedish Dragon label.

Frankfurt lineup and soloists:

Bengt Berger, Ko-Gyil (Lo-Birifor funeral xylophone), Atsimevu (Ewe master drum);
Anita Livstrand, Ko-Gyil, voice, percussion;Bosse Skoglund, percussion;Thomas Mera Gartz,percussion, tenor sax;Sigge Krantz, acoustic and electric bass, guitar, percussion;Matthias Helldén, cello, percussion;Tord Bengtsson, violin, guitar, percussion;Christer Bothén, tenor sax, bass clarinet, percussion;
Björn Hellström, bass clarinet, flute, percussion;
Ulf Wallander, soprano sax, tenor sax, percussion;
Jörgen Adolfsson, soprano sax, alto sax, percussion;
Tommy Adolfsson, trumpet, percussion; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet;
K. Sridhar, sarod.