Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Winter in Venice (2005/2020)

This year isn't the first time that Esbjorn Svensson has stood on stage in Montreux. He was already a guest in the summer of 1998 at the jazz festival on Lake Geneva. At that time he was a member of the Nils Landgren Funk Unit. He had left his piano in Sweden in favor of the Fender Rhodes. Svensson's feel for the right sound at the right moment and artful ease of style helped make his trombone-playing countryman's concert a success. Lots of applause, ample praise, and a refreshingly direct jazz-funk album were the reward for all the work (Nils Landgren Funk Unit: Live in Montreux, ACT 9265-2). The line-up's crisp, concise work is only one side of Svensson's talent. Born in 1964 in the Swedish town of Vasteras, the pianist and composer belongs to the handful of original stylists of the modern jazz piano. He digs into the mountain of tradition with the curiosity of a musical prospector, and with clarity and wit sifts through its ringing fragments. Some motives seem to be familiar, some changes are commonplace; nevertheless, the musical effect is unique, occasionally eccentric, emotional, impulsive. Svensson only hints at his connection to players from Bill Evans to Keith Jarrett as he adds their innovations to his own inventory of improvisational styles. The rest comes from intuition based on solid musical analysis, which allows his musical world to evolve on solid, self-sufficient ground.