Groove Stops When It Comes To That Old Familiar Feeling

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday January 22, 2007

Reviewed by John Shand

e.s.t.

City Recital Hall, January 19

EVEN were e.s.t. the world's most innovative piano trio, it would be odd to include a band in the Sydney Festival that were here only 16 months ago.

Given such a modest jazz component, to import two acts that have visited in the past 20 months - Madeleine Peyroux being the other - is unfathomable. Surely the festival is an opportunity to present artists we haven't been exposed to, or to formulate intriguing collaborations with local players, while always aiming for the excellence so manifest in the Beckett season.

The Esbjorn Svensson Trio is more eccentric than innovative. Pianist Svensson, bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Ostrom have their own way of pulling together elements of jazz, classical, electronica and rock, but the upshot is hybridisation rather than the genuine innovation achieved locally by Triosk and the Necks.

Essentially, e.s.t. is a two-trick band. The Swedes do ballads (with or without a side serve of electronic embellishment) and they do galloping rock-derived rhythms (also with or without).

The self-penned ballads are their forte, Svensson sometimes colouring them with adroit electronic treatment of the piano to dream-like effect. A gifted player, he performed some ravishing melodies with supremely graceful touch, and in one solo hit upon a trilling figure he moved up the keyboard, the effect like a sun-shower gathering in intensity. Berglund, too, contributed some pretty work on the gentler pieces, and Ostrom's deft precision lent an orchestrated feel, even if he is not one to paint pictures at the kit.

But the up-tempo pieces were dull, employing similar rhythms and a recurring device of gradually increasing dynamics, often climaxing in rather scratchy arco bass solos. Quite simply they are not a groove band, nor are they hypnotic, yet they sit on repetitions rather than embracing a more conversational, jazzy approach to alleviate the sameness.

The sound was exceptional, aided by four broad, angled, stage-to-ceiling ribbons, a wonderful improvement on a backdrop to dampen the room's acoustics for amplified music.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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