Playing the guest slot at this week’s Limerick Songwriters night in Foley’s Bar on Sarsfield St. If you’re around Limerick, drop in and hear some of my music. I don’t think I’ve ever done a gig in Limerick before, so it’ll be a first for me.
Galway folk, I’m playing the Citóg night this Friday in De Burgo’s supporting Music For Dead Birds and Niall Murphy, which will be a wonderful night. As usual there will be a donation box at the door supporting St. Vincent De Paul.
When I was in university, every so often one of my friends would announce some random gig or other that we all just had to go to. Sometimes the excitement was well founded – like the first time Damien Rice came to play in NUIM was just at the university open mic, but the excitement was well built up by the time he came back a year later with a full band. Other times, the hype fell through. But this particular friend had never gotten so enthusiastic about a gig before this. She wanted us to go and see the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Nika is Swedish, and we figured it was just some random Swedish band who no-one else would know about, so we’d all go along with her and see them in Vicar St. In her eagerness, Nika ended up being one of the first people booking tickets, and we were seated up in the two tables front and centre in Vicar St – right up at the stage with a full clear view of the jazz trio set up.
We gathered first out in the bar, before going in to take our seats, and I got chatting to some random guy who was asking me what I thought of the group, and if I’d seen them before. When he discovered that not only was this the first time I’d be seeing them live, but also that it would be my first exposure to their music at all, he was surprised. But upon also find out that we were all music students, he decided to give me a copy of “Strange Place For Snow“, which he had intended to give to the friend he was meeting to go to the gig with. But it ended up in my bag instead, and I said thank you as we headed into the gig.
I felt a bit guilty taking the best seats in the gig, especially as only one of us even knew of e.s.t. beforehand. But as the gig progressed, I was kinda glad we had those seats, as the band completely blew us away. A gang of eager music students hanging on every note was perhaps the best thing you could have in those seats at a gig. The energy coming from the stage was astonishing, and seeing how each musician stretched the boundaries of what they could make their instrument do was inspiring. It completely reignited my love of jazz and Esbjörn Svensson quickly moved into my list of inspirational pianists.
After the gig, the simple gesture of a stranger giving me a copied CD of some music meant a hell of a lot more, and that album has become one of my most listened to records over the years.
Astonishingly wonderful piano playing. I love how he incorporates prepared piano techniques into his music, and quite effortlessly, and to brilliant effect:
The two piano lines in this track really showcase the Baroque influence on his piano style, and always brings to mind that amazing piano solo in Nina Simone’s version of “Love Me Or Leave Me” :
Tragically, Esbjörn Svensson died in 2008 in a diving accident. His obituary in The Independent tells how he brought jazz to new audiences, and speaking from personal experience, that is most definitely true.
The pianist and composer Esbjörn Svensson was one of the most popular and influential figures in contemporary jazz. His group e.s.t. (Esbjörn Svensson Trio) […] drew inspiration from Bach and the baroque, ambient music, rock and techno to create a new form of intensely textured instrumental music that proved as attractive to younger fans with no previous interest in jazz as it did to admirers of the classic piano trios that the group’s ensemble-based style referenced.
[…]As a jazz pianist, Svensson had an unusually versatile style, which combined the structural importance of baroque counterpoint that he had learned to appreciate in his classical studies, with lightly twinkling improvisations that recalled Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, the two most influential piano trio leaders of the post-war period.
What made Svensson most unusual within the normally promiscuous world of jazz is that almost all his mature work was with the same group, and the same personnel. He was also very happy to let Berglund and Oström take up solo space themselves, and the great delight of e.s.t. as a group was the strength of the ensemble rather than that of the individuals who comprised it.
Someone I was chatting to recently about music, was hating on jazz, and saying that a lot of instrumental jazz had no heart, and was just experimentation and a wild mess that was unlistenable and had to structure. I’ll be the first to admit that I loved vocal jazz a lot earlier than I developed a love for purely instrumental jazz, but can you listen to this and say it has no heart:
The melody at the end of that track just hits me really hard. It’s just beautiful, and the whole ending of that piece is magical.
Along with everything else in this track, listen to the double bass part here around the 5min mark especially. Seeing a double bass being used like that live for the first time was ear and eye opening for a young music student, let me tell you:
Dublin is proving to have many little hidden gems at the moment. When I played the Saucy Sundays sessions in January, I was blown away by the venue upstairs in the Grand Social. Wonderful place to play, and the audience were fantastic. I had a similar experience with the very intimate Matchbox Theatre, which is downstairs in Le Café des Irlandais on Georges St (where Café Bar Deli used to be).
This beautifully intimate café theatre hosts the 50 Cent Sessions every Wednesday at the moment, and is the perfect venue for this kind of an evening. Last wednesday I was playing a wee set there, and it was wonderful to get to hear such a variety of other acts.
I had the odd experience of following another pianist (it’s not often you run into piano-based songwriters at nights like this, for some reason. Lots of guitars, not so much piano), so we decided to share the same set-up, to save time and hassle on the night. So, I was playing an unfamiliar digital piano, which just felt all kinds of wrong. And I was sitting down. I realised that I’ve never actually done a solo gig sitting down at the piano. I seem to play standing up when I’m performing pretty much always. It really is more constricting to be sitting, and I ended up contorting and piano-bench humping and understanding just why someone like Tori Amos ends up writing around on the piano bench while performing. It’s not in me to sit still while playing.
Watch me being all awkward with a strange piano. But it was the night before Paddy’s Day, so I sang one of my Irish language songs.
Nevertheless, it renewed my love for my own gear, as I really do love the digital Roland I’ve had for the last 8 years or so. It’s heavy as hell, and a pain in the ass to move between gigs sometimes, especially since my case has now lost all handles and broken both wheels, but I really noticed the difference it makes when I was without it last Wednesday. Needless to say, next time I’ll forgo using someone else’s, even if it is less hassle, as I’m just more comfortable with something that feels closer to a real piano.
I’ll be playing the Saucy Sundays live sessions on the 16th of January at 5pm, in the Grand Social (formerly Pravda) in Dublin. If you’re around, drop in and hear some of my music in a live setting!
Nina Simone was studying to be a classical pianist, but got sidetracked by her evening job playing jazz to help support her studies in classical piano at Juilliard School of Music. I can relate, on a much smaller, less talented kinda scale. While studying for a degree in music I became as much interested in jazz and other forms of music, as I was in my primary area of study – classical music, and classical piano more specifically.
I remember spazzing out over her version of Love Me or Leave Me with a fellow piano student, and drawing comparisons with Bach’s Inventions. She was one of the first artists I was introduced to musically, who seemed to cover a lot of the same musical interests as myself.
It was one of my best friends in Secondary school who first introduced me to Nina Simone. We would listen to her albums while getting ready in her room to go out to town or somewhere. I have a strong memory of her dancing around her room to I Put A Spell On You.
Over the years, my love of Nina’s music has grown, and one of her own songs that speaks to me a lot lately is Mississippi Goddam (live!). She was passionate, political, intelligent, and very talented.
“Keep on sayin’ ‘go slow’…
to do things gradually would bring more tragedy.
Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it?
I don’t know, I don’t know.
You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality!”