![\"Magnus](\"http:\/\/www.tomajazz.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/magnus_ostrom_5533.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>\u00a9 Sergio Cabanillas<\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/center><\/p>\n
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ARTURO MORA: First of all, my deepest condolencies regarding Esbj\u00f6rn\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Thank you very much, thanks.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Four months have passed since Esbj\u00f6rn passed away. You were close friends since your early childhoods. How are you bearing his lose?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: It\u2019s been really hard actually, what can I say? It\u2019s been four months but still it\u2019s a very short time. It will take a long time to kind of get back on track. It\u2019s tough.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: We all know what kind of musican Esbj\u00f6rn was, but how was he like as a person?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: He was a very dedicated person when it comes to most things, I think. Everything he was interested in he committed himself to it, like in music. He worked a lot, he was very focused in what he was doing, and also a very curious guy.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Leucocyte<\/i>, the new album by e.s.t., is a freely improvised album. How much of the record was pre-written and how much was fully improvised?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: There\u2019s nothing written, everything is fully improvised. There\u2019re no pre-structures or compositions that we build on. From the first to the last note it\u2019s totally improvised.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: What was the process like? Did anyone start with an idea, was it always Esbj\u00f6rn? Did you have a little talk before starting a tune or anything?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: No, we didn\u2019t talk at all actually. Maybe I could start a groove or Dan [Berglund] <\/i>a bass line or Esbj\u00f6rn a chord and then we took from there. It was very very open and totally free actually.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Although there\u2019s a lot of room for improvisation it looks like keeping the beat was really important in this context.<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Yes, it is, yes.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\u00a9 Sergio Cabanillas<\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/center><\/p>\n
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ARTURO MORA: Is it a coincidence that the whole record is in 4\/4?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: I don\u2019t know, it just came out this way. It\u2019s a hard question to tell [laughs], I don\u2019t know, I haven\u2019t really thought about that actually. Maybe the beat comes out naturally like that, or something, I don\u2019t know why it is like that. I don\u2019t have any real answer to that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you compose things you can figure out how to change things around and then maybe it\u2019s easier to go with different grooves and different beats, maybe in 7, or 5, but…<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: What are you thinking about when you\u2019re playing in this context?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: I don\u2019t actually think much at all, things don\u2019t come really from the brain, they come from somewhere else. It\u2019s hard to tell where it comes from, but you don\u2019t really think, you just start out and listen. You listen to yourself, of course, but you also listen to the musicians around you, it\u2019s the only way you do it. When you improvise like this it\u2019s good if your brain is not there actually [laughs].<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: How did you come up with the idea of the snare drum solo at the end of \u201cPremonition \u2013 Earth\u201d?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: [laughs] You mean like the machine gun thing? [laughs]<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Yeah, that rockish thing.<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: I don\u2019t know. Of course there\u2019s a reminiscence of the Jimi Hendrix song [entitled \u201cMachine Gun\u201d], I think it\u2019s [drummer] Buddy Miles who plays on this song, I don\u2019t know [he does]. My brother listened a lot to Jimi Hendrix, he still does, he\u2019s three years older than me, so I got that music very early in my life. When we played it back and I heard it I noticed I somehow picked it up from there. When I played I didn\u2019t think at all, but, you know, whatever you play it comes from somewhere.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\u00a9 Sergio Cabanillas<\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/center><\/p>\n
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ARTURO MORA: I guess you came up with the song titles, as usual.<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Yes, I came up with them, yes.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: The tune named \u201cJazz\u201d swing, is there anything ironic in that title?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s easy to feel that this is ironic, but it\u2019s more like kind of bring that word back to value, because you know people think so much what jazz is, so why not just put that word? People ask: \u201cdo you play jazz, or are you a pop band, or whatever, what do you play?\u201d, and that brings back the value of the word for ourselves, and of course you can see it a little bit of ironic, but what can you say?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you read the titles like a poem you can see how it connects: \u201cJazz still ajar\u201d [tracks 4, 5, and 6 are \u201cJazz\u201d, \u201cStill\u201d, and \u201cAjar\u201d], because that was my first thought on this record, to read the titles like a poem. My titles are usually much longer, but now I wanted just one word on every song, so that was the connection, you can read it like \u201cjazz still ajar\u201d: the door of jazz is still open for us.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: When you played live you used to link songs with free improvisational parts. Did the jam session idea come from that?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: In the beginning it was Esbj\u00f6rn playing some piano in between songs to connect somehow and then we opened up more and more and it was Dan and me playing things in between, after that it was all together and more and more. This record was like playing this in-between thing to show that part of us. A lot of people when they think of e.s.t. they think about strong compositions and strong melodies, all that stuff, but we improvised a lot, and we thought: \u201cmaybe we should try to put this on a record to show that side of us.\u201d So during concerts it was just like we did in the studio: somebody starts something, or it comes from something, from somewhere, and it just goes on and goes over to another composition. In a way that\u2019s a jam in front of an audience, but there were no pre-jams that we took parts from. It was totally free.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Was any material added to the CD after the recording, in the mixing process?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: No, what you hear is what happened during those two days, there\u2019s nothing added, no songs, no improvised parts, no overdubs, nothing. You hear it like it was.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\u00a9 Sergio Cabanillas<\/span><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/center><\/p>\n
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ARTURO MORA: Now that the band is over, which is your vision of e.s.t. in retrospect?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Well, it\u2019s really hard to… The thing that I will remember about the band is that we reached the very valuable point that we found our own sound, our own personal group sound, and that\u2019s a very big thing. Not everyone has the possibility and the time to do that, because people have to struggle and play in different bands to survive. We were fortunate to have the time to work together as a group for so long, for such a long time.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s very hard. I\u2019m still in it in some ways. I haven\u2019t listened to the music that much after what happened, but when I hear a song I can hear it from outside, more as a listener, and as I said, I can really hear that this is e.s.t., and sounds like nothing else actually. That\u2019s what I\u2019m very happy about.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: Are you especially happy with a determined time within the band\u2019s career, a record, a performance?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Wow, we did so many fantastic things together, so many great concerts… More or less every concert was great in some way, because there was a strong thing with the trio that every concert was important, and when we were onstage we were all there, very focused and very concentrated. There was a really important thing for us, that we didn\u2019t go up onstage and thought: \u201cwe should take it easy today, because tomorrow we have a very important gig.\u201d That never worked for us, we gave 100% every concert.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What can you say? Of course it\u2019s always very special to play at a new venue in a new country. During the years there were of course different steps taken, and those steps were very important. The first gig in Stockholm in 1992 or 1993 was as important as the last gig in Moscow. One of the good things in the trio is that we were still three guys trying to make music [laughs], like we were still in the basement we were when we were kids, still looking forward, still curious. It was a great thing that we could be there.<\/p>\n
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ARTURO MORA: Are you aware of how e.s.t. has influenced other bands?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Not really, a lot of people have told me enough that they\u2019ve heard trios or they\u2019ve heard other bands that may have listened to us. I have heard it from people in different countries, and also people saying: \u201cyou really influenced my band\u201d, but I just can\u2019t really say I\u2019ve heard a band first hand that I can hear they have listened to us. Specially after what happened we got comments and condolences from all over the world, and then I realized how huge it was, because when you\u2019re in the middle of it and travelling from concert to concert, of course you hear good comments from the audience, you know that people like what you\u2019re doing, but after what happened you can really see the impact it had on people. I\u2019m totally stunned, it\u2019s totally amazing. It had a meaning somehow, that we could reach people and maybe make their lives more better or whatever, but if it helped them during their lives it kind of had a meaning, even though what\u2019s happened now. And hopefully people will continue to listen to that music.<\/p>\n
ARTURO MORA: A hard question I have to make: what now for you and Dan?<\/p>\n
MAGNUS \u00d6STR\u00d6M: Now it has been four months. When you\u2019re in such a state after such an event time flies, for me it feels like a month or something. It\u2019s really hard to feel. I\u2019m really trying to adjust to my new life, and it\u2019s the same for Dan. We have done this for fifteen years with the trio, we have travelled the world for ten years in a very intense touring. I just try to figure out how to live our new lives. It\u2019s also hard for us to say musically where to go, it will take a long time to find a meaning. \u201cWhy?\u201d, that\u2019s the hardest question. Because you\u2019ve reached as far as you can go with the band, you can say: \u201cwe have not really anything more to prove\u201d, or something like that. It\u2019s really hard to find this \u201cwhat should I do and why should I do it\u201d, because we did it, we did such a great thing with the trio. We\u2019ll see, we\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n
Text: \u00a9 2008 Arturo Mora Rioja <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n<\/a>Photographs: \u00a9 2008 Sergio Cabanillas<\/a><\/p>\n