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Jazz Articles about Esbjorn Svensson
Soft and Hard
by Patrick Burnette
We spend a lot of time on this show exploring what you might call, if you were a lapsed academic with pomposity issues, the accessibility spectrum. Some jazz is pretty easy to get--and some just ain't pretty. In this show, we travel quite a way across the spectrum listening to coffee-house ready (but good) jazz and stuff that would just plain shut that java hut down.h3>Playlist Discussion of Gebhard Ullmann's album For New Zealand (NotTwo) 3:00 Discussion of ...
read moreEsbjörn Svensson: HOME.S.
by Mike Jurkovic
Akin to when people first sat in elegant staterooms listening to Chopin, Mendelssohn, Mahler, or Erik Satie seek the muse, HOME.S stands as the first solo performance by the late Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson and will quite possibly be considered the grandest moment of any other forthcoming posthumous releases. Recorded mere weeks before the scuba diving accident that took him from his wife, two sons, and us in June of 2008, HOME.S creates that rare air of intimacy ...
read moreEsbjorn Svensson: HOME.S.
by Geno Thackara
We've had a few from-the-vaults recordings worth celebrating since Esbjorn Svensson's sudden passing in mid-2008, but this long-belated discovery is a quiet surprise the music world could not have expected. There was the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (e.s.t.)'s final completed album Leucocyte (ACT Music) that same year, later followed by the equally exploratory 301 (ACT, 2012) which was compiled from the same sessions. A couple of posthumous live releases have further demonstrated how the trio's stylistic hodgepodge would appeal to rock- ...
read moreEsbjorn Svensson: HOME.S.
by Karl Ackermann
In 2022, it has been more than a decade since the influential Swedish pianist/composer Esbjörn Svensson passed. The measure of his impact can be calculated in the ongoing comparisons of up-and-coming piano trios to his groundbreaking Esbjörn Svensson Trio Trio. Several weeks before Svensson's untimely death his wife Eva heard him recording solo piano pieces in their home. She backed up his files for posterity but would not return to those recordings for more than ten years. She teamed up ...
read moreA World of Piano Trios II
by Mark Sullivan
Several parts of the world heard from in this installment: Sweden, Norway, France, and the United States. Esbjorn Svensson Trio (E.S.T.) e.s.t. live in Gothenburg ACT Music 2019 Before Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson's untimely death in 2008, e.s.t. was a sensation. They brought an eclecticism and rock-like energy to piano trio music that continues to reverberate today in the music of groups like GoGo Penguin. This 2001 concert recording comes from ...
read moreEsbjörn Svensson Trio: e.s.t. live in Gothenburg
by Phillip Woolever
More than a decade after a tragic diving accident ended Swedish pianist Esbjorn Svensson's life and thus dissolved his renowned trio, the group remains a potent force in the world of popular jazz recordings. This digital document from a 2001 concert in Gothenburg seems certain to perpetuate that legacy. While much of this album is comprised of fairly standard piano-based aesthetics, the remarkable skills displayed by Svensson, drummer Magnus Ostrom and bassist Dan Berglund, in technical prowess and ...
read more3x3: Piano Trios: October 2019
by Geno Thackara
Esbjörn Svensson Trio Live in Gothenburg ACT Music 2019 At the time, it was a marvel. The Esbjorn Svensson Trio had already come a long way since their early-'90s beginnings in reshaping the already-skewed traditions of Monk-ian jazz. Their audiences back in 2001 would have been continually thrilled at discovering this fresh slant on the classic piano trio, bridging bop flair with hooks and grooves drawn from the modern rock and electronica scenes. Looking back ...
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