JAZZ: Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson and his group have successfully forged a 'musical democracy'. Now, he tells Ray Comiskey, they can work on developing 'the art of the trio'
Pianist Esbjörn Svensson's new album, Strange Place For Snow, is already selling well across the Continent. The figures are tiny compared to the Kylie Minogues and Britney Spearses of the pop world, but remarkable for a jazz release of any kind, especially for one from a group which has made no attempt at musical compromise. But this is no more than what the music's insiders have been predicting for some time - that the Svensson trio, now recognised just by the initials EST, was going to be one of the hottest acts in jazz.
After nine years together, not to mention another 10 playing in various other combinations, they've made it in Europe. Overnight success.
America is a tougher nut to crack, but for now the work is rolling in, with all the pleasures that brings, including travel, and all the negatives, including travel.
It wasn't always like that. When Esbjörn Svensson was a little boy, the odds were that he would one day belong to the world of classical music, not jazz. Family lore has it that he would ask his mother, who was a classical pianist, to play various records she had. "My mother used to tell me that I was listening a lot to Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring. I called it the 'boom boom' piece. I just believe what they told me," he adds with a laugh, "because I don't remember that!" His mother played Liszt at the piano; his father was a jazz fan, and albums by Count Basie, Thelonious Monk - years later, Svensson was to make a superb recording of Monk's highly individual music - Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker resounded through the house in Västeras, about 100 kilometres west of Stockholm.
With that background, and to hear him play today, it seems a safe assumption that he got a firm classical piano grounding from the start. But things didn't quite work out that way.
"Actually, I took lessons for one month," he says, "but it didn't help. It was a very boring thing. So I was playing by ear for the first years, and then I started to take lessons when I was 16. I learned how to read and I was playing some classical music. And then I did music at university in Stockholm, continuing for four years, playing a lot of classical stuff. I started to play jazz when I was around 16, too. I was very much interested in the harmonies. It was the harmonies that really brought me into this music."
Pianists like Monk and Keith Jarrett, for instance? "Not from the very beginning. There's a Swedish player called Bengt Hallberg. He was a big influence on me." Hallberg, a pianist of international stature, remains one of the great names in Swedish jazz. "And also I discovered Oscar Peterson, of course.
"But then we had a place in Västeras, some kind of music library where you can go. They had a lot of records - jazz, classical and some pop stuff . Through that marvellous place I discovered a lot of music. I first heard the Pat Metheny group there - that was a really exciting experience - and also McCoy Tyner and some stuff with Keith Jarrett."
Svensson had clearly hooked into a rich vein of jazz music. Metheny remains one of its leading guitarists, Tyner was the pianist in tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's ground-breaking early 1960s quartet, and Jarrett is one of the most gifted and distinctive pianists ever to grace jazz.
Jarrett's influence on Svensson has been remarked on by critics. "It was Keith Jarrett I discovered a little bit early," he acknowledges. "Somebody said 'he's a good piano player', so I bought a record called Facing You, and I was totally knocked out. I didn't know it was possible to play piano that way - and that is still one of my favourite records of all, actually."
Poised as Svensson was between classical music and jazz, what finally resolved the question for him? "I studied classical music," he says, "but I knew all the time that I'm not supposed to be a classical player. I wasn't that good. Actually, when I was at the gymnasium" - roughly the equivalent of secondary school here - "I was thinking maybe I should at least try to get into the music university as a classical player, and I sent in the paper but didn't tell my teacher.
"Then I had a lesson with her and she said, 'You're playing good, but you're not ready to try for the music university'. And I just felt 'oh, shit'. I went home, called the university and took back my application."
One year on, he got into the jazz education course at university and the rest, in a sense, is history. But his jazz career might have remained only of Swedish or, at most, Scandinavian interest had not he and drummer Magnus Öström, with whom he grew up, linked with bassist Dan Berglund a dozen years ago. Discovering a musical affinity, they took the courageous decision in 1993 to abandon other jobs and accept work only as a trio.
"It wasn't easy in the beginning," he says, "but I really wanted to try it, because I knew I wasn't into playing with everybody and playing different music and just surviving as a musician. I wanted to be more like an artist and create, you know, our own style. It's fantastic that we succeeded in that way, because now at least we can make our living on this. So now we can develop 'the art of the trio'."
Said with a laugh, this is a reference to the succession of albums, so titled, made by a pianist he admires, Brad Mehldau. But EST seems more of a collaboration than even the collegiate performances of Mehldau's group. Ideas can arise from jam sessions the trio has, or something played during a sound check, and Svensson works on them. Sometimes he composes, but, either way, Berglund and Öström get to work on it with him, and new material emerges. It's a kind of musical democracy with the pianist as first among equals.
Dedication, commitment and talent have earned the trio a success not equalled by jazz musicians in Sweden for years - which is why it's particularly touching to find on their new album a tribute to another Swedish jazz pianist who won popularity without compromise. Called Car Crash, it's a tribute to Jan Johansson, a seminal figure who unlocked the country's rich folklore for his country's jazz musicians. He was killed on the way to a concert in 1967 at the height of his fame.
"It's a dedication to one of the greatest players who ever lived," says Svensson, with feeling. "I think he influenced a lot of jazz musicians in Sweden. I mean all the musicians. All Swedes heard his record called Jazz På Svenska. I think that must be the best selling jazz record in Sweden ever."
It will be interesting to see what mark EST will leave, not just on Swedish jazz, but on the many-stranded European variety.
EST will play at Waterford's Garter Lane (Wednesday, May 22nd), Limerick's Belltable (Thursday, May 23rd), Dublin's Vicar Street (Friday, May 24th), and Belfast's Lyric Theatre (Saturday, May 25th). The tour is being organised by the Improvised Music Company.