A great triple act

Esbjorn Svensson's Trio is bringing jazz to the most unlikely of converts, writes John Fordham

It's pretty quiet, but Esbjorn Svensson is asking for the samba on the bar's sound system to be turned down. "I'm sorry," he says, "I have trouble concentrating when there's music playing. I keep listening to it." Since Svensson has the knack of spinning creative jazz off original tunes that sound like pop hooks, maybe this is his way of vacuuming up every promising fragment of melody.

At 40, the pianist/composer from the backwoods of Sweden is that rare phenomenon in jazz, a hero to the hardline critics and a bankable international star. The Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or EST, recycle the rock and pop world's stage props (light shows, smoke, electronics) and singable melodies build to set-piece climaxes; yet a good two-thirds of any EST gig will be fearless jazz improv that a Chick Corea buff could nod a head to.

EST now play 100 gigs a year worldwide, have just released their 11th album, and plan a big UK tour in May. Not bad for the kid from Skultuna, a tiny village west of Stockholm. Not bad either for Svensson's childhood friend Magnus Ostrom, whose journey toward the drum chair with EST began in Svensson's living room, whacking a set of empty paint cans.

EST also stand out for their long-running regular line-up. When a former rock electric bassist, Dan Berglund, joined Svensson and Ostrom 12 years ago, the last part of a remarkable team fell into place. "We took the chance to stay as a group. For years that wasn't easy. But the length of time we've played together means we hear and feel music together."

They're masters of the slow burn, as on the new album's Tide of Trepidation, where the music moves through leisurely piano ripples against brooding bass and drum parts, and Svensson's improvising engine almost imperceptibly accelerates.

It's a composer's album that doesn't cramp spontaneity, patient in its exposition of motifs, fiercely contemporary in Berglund's guitar-like bowed-bass electronics. The slow dance of the three around each other on the brooding title track highlights Svensson's classical interests (he loves Glenn Gould), and sounds like Brad Mehldau's and Jacques Loussier's trios, re-tinted with electronics.

EST's standing owes a lot to Svensson's determination. He spent as much time on the phone as at the piano in the early 1990s, bending promoters' ears. A sensational appearance at the 1999 Montreux jazz festival was followed by the sale of several thousand copies of Good Morning Susie Soho. The band found they were playing to teenagers who told them they never usually listened to jazz.

Svensson's youth had been spent percolating the input of a jazz-loving father, an amateur-pianist mother, devotion to the hippy rock of the Sweet, Deep Purple, Hendrix and Zappa, and then a growing fascination with Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea and Pat Metheny. His cousin played drums to 1950s rock'n'roll hits - so Svensson's mother taught him Long Tall Sally and Blue Suede Shoes, and Ostrom brought round the best drumkit he could find - his dad's old paint cans.

Svensson concentrated on pop and studio work when he graduated from music college, but never lost touch with Ostrom. In 1993, with the addition of bassist Berglund, the trio were ready to map out their own path. The band have now begun to travel regularly outside Europe. But Svensson calls conquering America "a hell of a job", and they lost money on their US trips until recently. "Maybe Europe is a more welcoming cultural climate these days," the pianist says, "even though jazz began as American music."

Unlike most crossover acts, EST don't sing, play smooth jazz or reshuffle the Great American Songbook. "Singers will always have a bigger audience," he says. "It's easier to listen to Norah Jones or Diana Krall than it is to us. But there's room for both. When you listen to Brad Mehldau, or Keith Jarrett, and maybe a little bit to us too, it's more like another kind of chamber music - the effect you might get from a good string quartet. The audience can see and hear the communication. And melody, melodies you could sing if you wanted to - that seems central to what we do. Playing in this band has been a fantastic experience for me, and it still is. Of course it has its ups and downs, like a marriage." He laughs at the thought. "And we all know how easy that is."

- Guardian Service

• The Esbjorn Svensson Trio's album, Viaticum, is out on ACT