e.s.t. 30

Album review

2023 marked the 30th anniversary of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's (E.S.T.) debut album, When Everyone Has Gone. It introduced a group sound rooted in jazz but equally embraced classical, pop, rock, folk, electronics, and improvisation. Their studio recordings and hundreds of concerts resonated with global audiences beyond jazz's neighborhood, making most of the albums international best-sellers. Since the accidental death of Svensson in 2008, there have been several E.S.T. live outings and the posthumous studio offering 301, containing the remaining sessions from Leucocyte. E.S.T. rhythm section, drummer Magnus Öström and bassist Dan Berglund, remain active sidemen and recording bandleaders. On e.s.t. 30, they're aided by pianist Joel Lyssarides, saxophonist/flutist Magnus Lindgren, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, and electric guitarist Ulf Wakenius. The quintet played two concerts in 2023, at the Philharmonie in Cologne, and Filadelfia Church in Stockholm. The repertoire comprised essential pieces from E.S.T.'s catalog and performed in a welcoming new way. These internationally recognized musicians treat the lyric, harmonic, and rhythmic elements of these pieces with tenderness, sensitivity and, above all empathy. While the core melodies remain recognizable, they are continually reinterpreted and renewed as the musicians react to the work and to one another in the moment. e.s.t. 30 continually evokes musical memories by expressing them through these lyric traces offered with lilting melancholy. It allows audience and musicians a shared experience in real time.
"From Gagarin's Point of View" is introduced with soft tom-toms and bowed upright bass. Lyssarides illuminates with elegant, pristine glissandos. When the bass vamp pushes the melody to the fore, the interplay between individuals becomes nearly instinctual, each individual statement reflects a unified response to the collective improvisation. "Seven Days of Falling" is a vehicle for Wakenius' elegant electric work. Warm and seamless, he meets Öström's shuffle and Lyssarides' airy arpeggios inside the harmony, then all three expand it in rounds in a graceful swing. Pohjola's solo intro to "Eighthundred Streets by Feet" offers a treated trumpet sound à la Arve Henriksen, answered by Lindgren's sweet flute and Öström's malleted tom-toms. A bleating low-register tenor saxophone introduces tempo and key shifts as the band gels under his lines, entering and exiting along the lyric vamp. The rockist piano riff in "Tuesday Wonderland" gives way to breezy, intricate, post-bop interplay from Lindgren, Lyssardries, and Öström. A sprightly yet knotty, scalar, piano, bass, and drum intro paints "Elevation of Love" in progressive contemporary jazz, it extends to modal post-bop when Pohjola enters and Wakenius soars in the margins. Closer "Believe, Beleft, Below" emerges from Svensson's lifelong love of liturgical and gospel music. Lindgren and Pohjola offer a simple melody over the piano progression in rounds. Wakenius introduces a melancholy blues that Lyssardries picks up and colors in his solo. The quintet eventually winds around that gospelized theme, closing together in resonance. e.s.t. 30 reflects the trio's musical legacy, true. As evidenced here, it is alive, well, and continues to evolve.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo