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Epicurus.com - Tuesday Wonderland
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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $16.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Emarcy / Umgd
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0602517256200
Label: Emarcy / Umgd
Manufacturer: Emarcy / Umgd
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Emarcy / Umgd
Release Date: 2007-04-10
Studio: Emarcy / Umgd
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Surreal Wonderland
Comment: Overview:
Tuesday Wonderland takes everything e.s.t. has been doing to the next level. Here they have crafted a complete album with a totally unique mood, texture, and sound that flows beautifully from start to finish. What differentiates album this from other e.s.t. albums is that this is not a collection of great songs, it is a conceptual album. Each song is a crafted composition and fits the overall theme of the album perfectly. It reminds me a great deal on a conceptual level of Pink Floyd's the Wall. While e.s.t. has always been creative with the sounds they employ they've really integrated them well here. Dan Berglund's distorted bass and bowing opens the album and sets the tone. Immediately you are lost in Wonderland. Svensson's use of a piece of paper in the piano strings creates a tinny ghost town effect on several tracks. It is easy to drift off in this surrealistic soundscape. While I love all e.s.t. albums I've heard, this one grows on me with each successive listen, and I think it is the most unique performance they have done.
Song Highlights:
Fading Maid Preludium - This song opens with a haunting piano line. Berglund then comes crashing in with a bomb of a distorted bass bowed line. Immediately you are transported to Wonderland.
Tuesday Wonderland - This is reminds me of "dodge the dodo" from an earlier e.s.t. work. It is instantly accessible, and the most catchy of all the tunes on the album. The song starts with a really snappy intertwined section consisting of a cool piano riff, bass line, and drum line. This song shows off everything great about e.s.t. Perhaps this is e.s.t.'s best song of all time.
The Goldhearted Miner - This song features soft brush strokes and a shuffle beat on the drums. Svensson has a piece of paper in the piano strings which creates a tinny piano sound and conjures up images of an old western saloon piano.
Brewery of Beggars - This song is all about insane bass lines. Both Berglund on the bass and Svensson on the low piano keys are just tearing up. The song is played at an absolutely frenetic pace and has a nice bridge section that features Berglund's bow work.
Tuesday Wonderland is hands down my favorite e.s.t. album. It is a little bit of a departure from previous albums, but I think it is a big step forward.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderland forever for Esbjoern Svennson (1964 - 2008)
Comment: Tuesday Wonderland is today the last studio album of E.S.T. (there's a Live Double CD from Hamburg, recorded in 2006, released in 2007), the next one CD (Leucocyte) is on the way, but for the E.S.T. leader too late ... Esbjoern Svennson (44) tragicaly died last Month by diving ... In loving memory with the magical touches of heavenly piano ... with feeling, with rythm and energy .. Thank you for the Music, Esbjoern.
Customer Rating:
Summary: More Cerebral Jazz From Sweden's Finest
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nothing Original
Comment: I own every domestic Esbjorn Svensson Trio album and this is the first one to disappoint me. With each of their other albums there are songs that are truly unique in composition, sounds and performance. However, this album is missing that innovation. To me, this album sounds like it was made by taking a handful of older, mediocre EST songs, dropping them in a blender and mastering what comes out. It sounds rehashed. The songs also aren't differentiated from each other, so it's not very noticeable when one song ends and another begins.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Runs the gamut from lilting melodies to harsh dissonance
Comment: Noting that E.S.T. is Esbjörn Svensson on piano, Dan Berglund on bass, and Magnus Öström on drums reveals little about this trio's music. Fittingly, the title "Tuesday Wonderland" does offer clues, suggesting that from an ordinary day (and Tuesday is my least favorite day of the week), one can, and should, find magic, or at least enough uncommon things to rouse the spirit (not necessarily to soothe it though).
And E.S.T. does that on the music here, 11 vignettes that run the gamut from lilting melodies to harsh dissonance, that alternately shock and soothe, sometimes within the boundaries of the same song. I think the trio has pushed away some of the temptations to try to sound too new, too experimental---elements that made the preceding "Viaticum" a lesser album in my opinion---and mined the formulas that have served them best on their other recordings.
The opening track, Fading Maid Preludium, sets one up to expect the worst with it harsh electronics, but that most tracks are generally accessible (though I wish the band would quit monkeying around with those long gaps on their final tracks). On Dolores In A Shoestand, for instance, the trio's music gains energy and merges into a single point of focus, like the intersection of ocean and sky. Even when trekking off into odd territory, E.S.T. is certainly cohesive and entertaining, if not exactly ground-breaking or easy to classify.
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