If I didn’t live here, I’d feel more love for License to Funk. It’s a well-made, sincere funk album by the Swedish jazz trombone player, and his band is solid, including Ray Parker, Jr. on guitar. In New Orleans, though, we simply hear funk that digs in harder with a deeper groove than this. Even if it had monster grooves, songs about nothing—“House Party” and “freak U” in this case—become tiresome at some point. Here it happens earlier rather than later.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the album is at its best on the mid-tempo jams that have more of a soul-jazz feel, trading James Brown for Grover Washington. Landgren’s warm, human tone dominates and the “Aren’t we funky Swedes?” vibe disappears.

That’s an admittedly unkind way to phrase that thought, and the musicians are undoubtedly more respectful of funk traditions than that. Still, caricature lyrics and—in a few cases—caricature grooves invite doubt. Another lesson in how careful we have to be when crossing cultures and genres.