Celia Chavez
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I just saw this headline, and the news saddens me to no
Esbjörn Svensson, a brilliant pianist and composer, died yesterday in a scuba diving accident near Stockholm. He was only 44 years old.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2285789,00.html
What a great loss to the musical community. The Esbjörn Svensson Trio was a group whose evolution I was hoping to follow for many years to come. Led by Svensson, they were young, innovative, and created some of the most exciting yet still accessible jazz today. I hesitate to call their music jazz, though - it is really much more than just one classification.
The track I'm attaching, "When God Created the Coffeebreak" from their album "Strange Place for Snow", shows the boldness in Svensson's playing and writing, and whenever I listen to this track, I am transfixed by the play between the harmony in the right hand and the busy, heavy, urgent melody in the left hand. And it's also unbelievably and infectiously groovy.
Right before I made the move last year from New York to LA, I saw that E.S.T. were playing somewhere outside the city, and thought about going to see them, but the moving expenses took priority over a concert ticket. Wish I had chosen otherwise. I had caught E.S.T.'s show live at Jazz Alley in Seattle back in '03 and found they brought a currency and freshness to music that I had seen many young jazz acts strive for but fall short. Their original compositions stuck in my head like pop songs but were also highly textured and complex, blurring the lines between jazz, pop, rock, electronica. And live, they were rock stars - all thin, intense, Scandinavian-handsome, with unquestionable musicianship. Just three guys, but the magnetic Svensson led the other two - double-bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Öström - in painting vivid aural landscapes around their distinctive and memorable songs.
Another great article paying tribute:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=15579
Rest in peace, Esbjörn Svensson. You will be missed.
Thanks to last night's last minute posting by fellow MOG'er Robin Danar, I was able to catch the Direct TV broadcast of X in concert at SXSW this year. I haven't seen them in a while, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time - sometimes I forget that live, they're instrumentally a trio, and yet - they pack so much punch, even all these years after the songs were originally recorded.
I've always been baffled and delighted by X. They have that crazy, rootsy hillbilly influence, and yet, Exene's poetry and fashion sense - not to mention her unique way of singing harmony (and lead, for that matter) are definitely artsy and modern. Or is that post- modern? Their relentless and primal rhythms...anyhow, everything about X is rock-n-roll perfection - from the interaction of the rhythm section (DJ Bonebrake and John Doe) to Billy Zoom's boyish cuteness, rip-roaring guitar riffs, and stage poses; and the yin-yang creative, personal, and stage relationship of Exene and John. During one of the interviews John and Exene also mentioned something that is a hallmark of X songs: romanticism in the lyrics.
I also fondly recalled seeing them at the Showbox back in Seattle, when punk shows were still slightly brutal, and it being my first punk show in a while i was wondering why there was so much room in front of the stage. proudly claiming my spot where i would be positioned adoringly at Billy Zoom's feet. I patiently waited for the show to start, and was intrigued by the roadies who unrolled a non-skid mat in front of me. What was that for, I wondered?
Well the answers to my questions were answered when the band took the stage. The extra space up front? well, as the crowd rushed forward and crushed the wind out of my 5-foot frame, I figured that one out. The non-skid mat? Well, that was for Billy, his cowboy boots, and his famous, deep-lunge, split leg guitar rock pose.
Hopefully you can catch the Direct TV concert on repeats. The track I've attached, one of my faves, the one that closes the show, and one of the best song titles ever: The World's a Mess, It's In My Kiss. I love, love, love this band!
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Great post -- I saw them in 1981 or 82 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The didn't and don't do rock shows at this place. It's for theater productions, but X was exotic enought to qualify as perforance art I guess. I was right up front, and the set up allowed me to rest my feet on the stage because the audience was sort of above the band. I had never seen anyone quite like Billy Zoom. It remains one of my top five shows of all time. Rumor has it that Bob Dylan and a young Jakob Dylan were at that show.
I heard this line in this song for the first time a few years ago, at a live show by Richard Julian at the Living Room in NYC. It's affected me to this day, as I ask myself: is it better to shoot pictures and violate the intimacy of a human moment, or just let it occur undocumented, and preserve it internally, where it may be romanticized and distorted in any way possible - for better or for worse. Or lost.
My mom, god bless her, was infamous during my childhood for relentlessly forcing my brothers and me and various friends of the family into compositionally balanced poses and exclamations of "cheese!" through grimaced teeth. Flash, flash, flash.
Of course, if you have a photograph, upon subsequent viewing, sometimes you discover something precious or telling you may have missed, as Julian sings here...
In any case, this is a lovely song, and I often come back to it to admire its elegance.
Comments
You state the pros and cons of snapshots perfectly. I'm happy that the camera cannot capture everything, try as it may, and that the pockets of the documented and undocumented may mingle freely in our lives.
Photographic records of our lives are pervasive of all aspects of our life these days. It's become almost "pollutive." So I guess a bit more mystery would be welcome. (I for one prefer oblivion to anything else.)
Lovely song by the way. Thank you for sharing with us.
Beautiful song.
I really touched me because I've been very reflective lately, and I do love to go back through all the pictures and remembering the exact smells and laughter that the picture doesn't capture.
I also love to look at old black and white photos and try and imagine what the moment was like when that picture was taken. Something so beautiful about it.
Thanks for posting this. :)
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Oh dear that is sad news! Gonna have to play them tomorrow...
That's a great post on a sad occasion that shows a ton of much deserved respect. Thanks for turning me on to his music.
Damn. One listen to "When God Created the Coffee Break" and I am already an E.S.T. fan. Horrible that I would make this discovery at this time. R.I.P and rest in love to his friends and family. Will definitely give me something to think about while listening.