Esbjörn Svensson, the Swedish original who consistently turned crossovers between jazz, pop and classical music into lasting art with EST, would have got around to this orchestral venture himself but for his accidental death in 2008. With its shapely themes, subtle pacing and big climaxes, his popular trio’s music was ideal material, eloquently confirmed here by arranger Hans Ek, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and four star jazz soloists, including brilliant Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala and Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset. Svensson’s own arrangement embellishes the rocking theme of his famous Dodge the Dodo, and the fugal EST favourite When God Created the Coffee Break has inquisitive woodwind lines crossing the Bach-derived bassline before Rantala takes baroque serenity into double-time swing. Marius Neset’s tenor murmurs amid pedal-steel glimmers on Seven Days of Falling, velvet-toned trumpeter Verneri Pohjola is exquisite on Eight-hundred Streets by Feet, and Ek’s swooping flutes and deep strings sway over the characteristic smack and patter of original EST drummer Magnus Öström’s brushwork on Viaticum. It’s all beautifully and devotedly done.
