| 2 LP 12inch |
|
Buy at PlatoMania |
| Label ACT music |
UPC 0614427900951 |
Catalogue number ACTLP 90095 |
Release date 21 July 2023 |
Not so with Esbjörn Svensson Trio. The trio has sold three times as many albums as jazz acts normally do, but they still manage to stay on the good side of jazz aficionados and critics. The trio plays upwards of 100 shows each year to a very varied audience. Besides the usual jazz audience you’d be as likely to spot a little old lady as an advertising exec or high school kids. This year, the trio will include matinees on their tours to give their younger fans a chance to see them live. Their favourite moments are spent improvising on stage, and this is how they keep their material fresh and ever evolving. No two shows are the same and to a large extent, the band tries to capture this loose, improvisational vibe on record, and they rarely do more than one take in the studio. The recording process that led to "From Gagarin’s Point of View" (ACT 9005-2), that also became the first Swedish jazz video shown on MTV, is significant to how the band works: "We were working on another project, and had a few hours to spare, so we sat down and played a few songs", Esbjörn says. "Those songs make up about half the album, with the other half recorded in two similar sessions". "Keeping the spontaneity is extremely important to us", explains Magnus.
Esbjörn Svensson can’t imagine life without music. He’s been making noise for as long as he can remember; on pots, pans, tabletops and briefly playing the mandolin before settling in by the piano. Grade school was spent planning tours and designing album covers for the bands he was in, most of them including drummer Magnus Öström. 1993 Dan Berglund joined the band, and the three of them have since held what they call a "musical conversation" the critics call it "breathlessly beautiful", "the most touching moment I’ve ever heard on record", "a brutal force" and "jazz at it’s best". The critical acclaim and awards haven’t changed how the three good friends view their musicianship. "We set the highest standards for ourselves. What anybody else thinks is secondary", Dan states. "We are still inspired by any and all music; Björk is one of my personal favourites", says the former metalhead. No surprise then, that the collaborations that the trio has been involved in have spanned a wide variety of Sweden’s most successful artists. Their 1997 recorded album "Winter in Venice" (ACT 9007-2) received the Swedish Grammy
1999 EST has participated in Cool Sweden at Midem in Cannes as well as the Swedish Jazz Extravaganza in London. The same year the group also has played at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival along with Eagle Eye Cherry and Nils Landgren, at the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Israel together with Viktoria Tolstoy and at the Hultsfreds Festival. Besides that there have been tours to Germany, Switzerland, England, Nothern Ireland and South Africa, and the group has shared the stage and master classes with Chick Corea, John Scofield, Brad Mehldau Trio and others.
The Independent’s critic Stuart Nicholson was clearly moved by the concert. Here we reproduce his thoughtful and vivid review:
“The Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or EST as they like to be known these days, do to the jazz piano trio what James Joyce did to coming-of-age tales by cutting up the form and starting afresh.
“This acclaimed Swedish group have been a hit on the European scene for a while now. In 2000, the German news weekly Der Spiegel hailed Svensson as "the future of the jazz piano", and since then his trio have consolidated their position as one of the top bands on the circuit. They are currently more popular than most big American jazz names.
“Attracting the kind of following EST enjoy prompts accusations - often well founded - of dumbing down. But Svensson is one of those rare musicians who dispenses the common touch without compromising his art. He avoids the usual jazz musician's stock-in-trade of cramming as many notes as he can into the square inch, instead favouring innovative silences and a darkly intense lyricism that allows his emotional honesty to show through.
“Although he once dabbled among the magical spells of the pianist Keith Jarrett's Belonging period, the new spirit Svensson has come up with is shorn of Jarrett's angst and the feeling that a good thing has been taken to wearying extremes. Featured were several tunes from EST's current album, Viaticum (which went gold in France and platinum in Germany), including "Tide of Trepidation", "Eighty-eight Days In My Veins" and the title track.
“The suave use of lighting underlined the shifting moods of EST's music while their careful use of dynamics, unusual in jazz, which usually opts for fast-equals-loud, slow-equals-soft, made Svensson's lyrical intensity stand out in sharp relief. Yet the non-conformist Dan Berglund likes Jimi Hendrix and Richie Blackmore (of Deep Purple) and is not afraid to use a wah-wah pedal or feedback with his acoustic bass ("Mingle In the Mincing Machine"), while the drummer Magnus Ostrom dances around formal regularity with a variety of techniques, such as using his fingers on his snare to emulate pop's rhythm samples.
“EST renew the notion that the cutting edge of jazz need not involve volatile experimentation. At the head of a sense-sharpening breeze of change currently blowing through European jazz, Svensson [..] gave further evidence that the best European jazz is no longer a pale imitation of what is happening in the United States. Indeed, here was evidence that Europe is now moving ahead in creativity and originality.”
The Independent’s critic Stuart Nicholson was clearly moved by the concert. Here we reproduce his thoughtful and vivid review:
“The Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or EST as they like to be known these days, do to the jazz piano trio what James Joyce did to coming-of-age tales by cutting up the form and starting afresh.
“This acclaimed Swedish group have been a hit on the European scene for a while now. In 2000, the German news weekly Der Spiegel hailed Svensson as "the future of the jazz piano", and since then his trio have consolidated their position as one of the top bands on the circuit. They are currently more popular than most big American jazz names.
“Attracting the kind of following EST enjoy prompts accusations - often well founded - of dumbing down. But Svensson is one of those rare musicians who dispenses the common touch without compromising his art. He avoids the usual jazz musician's stock-in-trade of cramming as many notes as he can into the square inch, instead favouring innovative silences and a darkly intense lyricism that allows his emotional honesty to show through.
“Although he once dabbled among the magical spells of the pianist Keith Jarrett's Belonging period, the new spirit Svensson has come up with is shorn of Jarrett's angst and the feeling that a good thing has been taken to wearying extremes. Featured were several tunes from EST's current album, Viaticum (which went gold in France and platinum in Germany), including "Tide of Trepidation", "Eighty-eight Days In My Veins" and the title track.
“The suave use of lighting underlined the shifting moods of EST's music while their careful use of dynamics, unusual in jazz, which usually opts for fast-equals-loud, slow-equals-soft, made Svensson's lyrical intensity stand out in sharp relief. Yet the non-conformist Dan Berglund likes Jimi Hendrix and Richie Blackmore (of Deep Purple) and is not afraid to use a wah-wah pedal or feedback with his acoustic bass ("Mingle In the Mincing Machine"), while the drummer Magnus Ostrom dances around formal regularity with a variety of techniques, such as using his fingers on his snare to emulate pop's rhythm samples.
“EST renew the notion that the cutting edge of jazz need not involve volatile experimentation. At the head of a sense-sharpening breeze of change currently blowing through European jazz, Svensson [..] gave further evidence that the best European jazz is no longer a pale imitation of what is happening in the United States. Indeed, here was evidence that Europe is now moving ahead in creativity and originality.”
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