Entertainment, Music

The Incredible e.s.t.

It's e.s.t. time. It was around 5 pm, January 23, 2007, and I have just finished attending a meeting at 27 Floor, BNI 46 building. The meeting was good and everybody was happy. The rain was still hard and as usual traffic became worse, and it took me two hours to get to Rasuna Concert Hall at Kuningan.



Still it’s too early to be there, since the show supposed to start at 8 pm, the time Dewi and my daughter arrived. However the door was opened at 8.30pm, seemingly awaited people who were trapped in the traffic.

Having a LowePro SlingShot which looked heavy on my hand, made the ticketing girl and an EO person thought I was a journalist. I grinned on thinking that in fact I was the Project journalist.

A nice looking lady with painted hair and a Nikon camera attached with an L-series lens on her shoulder a couple of times shot her eyes on my bag. Gee, I might need to bring my camera with a different type of bag. Hmmm, take it easy old man…

Once we were in, I had to move to four different seats before settling comfortably in the center back seat, just tried to find the better place to take pictures. In fact, I probably shouldn’t take a seat at all.

After a short announcement, The Esbjörn Svensson Trio (e.s.t.) personnel entered the hall elegantly and received a warm welcome applause from the audience. There were eventually more than 200 jazz musicians and fans in the hall, including Krakatau personnel (Dwiki, Ubit), Indra Lesmana and some familiar faces that I saw at Pasar Jazz the other day. Not quite bad for a concert with price tag of Rp.200,000 per ticket, in a rainy day with a bad traffic.

e.s.t. personnel are Esbjörn Svensson at piano; Dan Berglund played bass and Magnus Oström on drums. Svensson’s a nice looking guy with sharp eyes and warm smiles, whilst Berglund looked like one of the Vikings to me. Oström’s more like a philosopher, especially when you saw his serious concentrating face, trying to keep the harmony in check, synchronizing his hands movements on the drums with other sounds entering his ears and soul.

After listening to wonderfully crafted compositions, watching they played their instruments exotically, subtly, and then sometimes went wildly, I was like experiencing multiple soul orgasms, truly. It’s really ecstatic. You got to see them on stage to appreciate what I was trying to say.

It’s a different class of jazz music performance. It’s a fusion of flawless techniques blended with results of deep and intense individual research and exploration that went beyond instrument limitations, and fascinating sounds produced with the use of add-on sound technology supervised by an expert sound engineer, and a rare creativity that strengthen each other, resulted in astounding sound compositions and productions that touched your uncharted imaginations.

Even though they didn’t communicate much verbally, as probably most of other musicians, still I felt they were intensely communicating to the audience through waves of astonishing sounds and compositions, individually and as a group, plus you got to see their stage acts and expressions. It’s close to perfection of a concert.

No wonder that e.s.t. is considered as one of the most innovative jazzbands of today.

When they finished playing the last song, the audience clapped hands graciously. The trio bowed to the audience, left the stage, and people still clapped hands continuously for a long period of time, until the trio fulfilled the audience wish to perform extra songs. They played two more compositions. Perfect. Everyone was fully satisfied, and awarded a long standing ovation to the group. Hope to see them on stage again next time with different level of achievements in sound explorations and compositions.

I bought three of their albums which were displayed outside the hall, and I transferred them all already into my iTunes. Anybody wants to buy them at half of the prices? Nope? That’s fine, will consider to give them for free then. Well, just greets me at the next Jazz concert in town....






























, seorang pejalan musiman dan penyuka sejarah. Penduduk Jakarta yang sedang tinggal di Cikarang Utara. Diperbarui: January 27, 2007.

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