Tuesday Wonderland

Esbjorn Svensson Trio (Performer), E.S.T. (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Esbjorn Svensson Trio, E.S.T.
• Audio CD (April 10, 2007)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Emarcy / Umgd
• ASIN: B000NOKA9Y
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,192 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

E.S.T. like to play with expectations, and they begin Tuesday Wonderland as you might assume, with a spare solo piano line hinting at a delicate baroque counterpoint. It's the kind of feather-stroked chamber jazz they've been working for a few years now. But just as you settle in, crushing drums and fuzzed arco bass drop in a groove from the apocalypse. This ominous track, "Fading Maid Preludium," and its second half, "Fading Maid Postludium," frame Tuesday Wonderland, setting in bas-relief an album of careening, intuitive improvisation. E.S.T. are frighteningly varied in their technique and deep in their understanding of jazz lore. You can hear echoes of Keith Jarrett and Ahmad Jamal in pianist Esbjörn Svensson, from whom the trio take their name, but he also embraces a more modern vocabulary, hinting at Cecil Taylor while dancing gospel vamps and dropping rock power-chords. Drummer Magnus Öström can lay down the shuffling brush strokes of "The Goldhearted Miner," pour out a progressive rock fusillade, or do a ballet of polyrhythmic shadings and colors that recall the late Steve McCall. The real chameleon of the group is bassist Dan Berglund. He plays soulful, muscular double bass lines, but he also triggers a synthesizer for both subtle shading and the hellion roar heard on that opening track. E.S.T. remain a group exploring the edges of jazz improvisation, managing to be free and intuitive while also maintaining melodic and rhythmic touchstones. Tracks like "Brewery of Beggars" are multipart journeys shifting from gentle lyricism to electric storms. E.S.T. have evolved from being the most ECM-like band that wasn't on ECM into their own natural and thoroughly modern hybrid. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Their most accomplished record yet ., April 10, 2007

By 

gizgoogmai (London, England UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuesday Wonderland (Audio CD)

This piano-led trio have carved out a space somewhere between the thoughtful European jazz of Keith Jarrett and the atmospheric textures of Sigur Rós or Radiohead.
Their last album sold many thousands copies and they fill the major concert halls in Europe.
This is their 10th album, and the major influence is Bach, most noticeably in the mathematical purity of tracks such as Beggar's Blanket.

From the opening classical piano pattern disrupted by a guitar power chord, "Tuesday Wonderland" avoids the usual melody-improvisation-melody structure beloved of most jazz bands.
It may be too introverted for some, but E.S.T. balance this with expressive solos to make their most accomplished record yet.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Cerebral Jazz From Sweden's Finest, May 29, 2008

By 

Kurt Harding "bon vivant" (Boerne TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tuesday Wonderland (Audio CD)

Though I don't own every E.S.T. recording, I do own a good number of them so when I compare them I don't understand how any reviewer could rate Tuesday Wonderland at less than at least three stars. What is it the negative reviewers are not hearing that I am hearing?
There is a lot to like here. Fading Maid Preludium opens the album in a stately manner that promises greatness to come. That is followed by the melodic title cut which is sometimes evocative of Bob James and Joe Sample. Then later Brewery of Beggars heats to a furious boil, simmers down, then boils again. Dolores in A Shoestand is a nearly nine-minute workout that could almost be said to be radio friendly. Eighthundred Streets By Feet is a very relaxing, introspective cut followed immediately by the rolling gallop of Goldwrap. The CD closes on a note that mirrors its opening then segues after a long pause into one of the signature "secret" tunes of which the trio seems to be fond.
Tuesday Wonderland gives you well over an hour of inventive and cerebral jazz from Sweden's finest jazz trio. While it is not my favorite E.S.T. recording, there is more than enough good music here to keep me returning to it time and again.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just beautiful., May 23, 2007

By 

justmoi (New York,N.Y.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuesday Wonderland (Audio CD)

In the beginning it was Sweden, then Europe and now it's the world. The rise and rise of EST has been remarkable in recent years - in the USA they were the first ever European jazz group to feature on the cover of Downbeat magazine, while their intro to Japan's top promoter was on the recommendation of Keith Jarrett. If any one is in any doubt about how original, absorbing and dynamic this band is, then get "Tuesday Wonderland", their tenth album.

From the étude-like opening ("Fading Maid Preludium") that explodes into post Hendrix power-chords to the focused beauty of "Where We Used To Live", this remarkable group is one of the few bands on the current scene that can be truly called sui generis - for evidence of this try the shifting tone colours of the title track.
What is even more remarkable is that Bach's Well Tempered Clavier could inspire such a wide range of moods.
Esbjörn Svensson (pianist), Dan Berglund (bassist) and Magnus Öström (drummer).