The jazz world still hasn’t properly reconciled itself to the death of Esbjörn Svensson. Maybe it never will. For EST bassist Dan Berglund the death of his friend and colleague will always hang heavy on his heart. But now 18 months after Esbjörn’s death, Berglund has returned to music with the birth of a new band Tonbruket, a debut album by the band and a tour of the UK this month. Andy Robson talks to Dan about the traumatic period he has just been through and, as a leader for the first time, how he faces the new challenges the project throws up. Only journalists and EST devotees would have cause to do it: but if you skim the countless interviews with the much missed trio, the refrain of bassman Berglund – when given the chance to say anything that is – is always ‘Oh, I never grew up’.

Somehow, while Esbjörn Svensson was exhorted as the musical polymath, the interpreter of Bach and Bartók, and drummer Magnus Öström was praised for his wide musical sensibility, Berglund, partly through his own self dismissal as the big kid of the band and partly because he seemed at home with his role as the unreconstructed rocker – ye Gods, a Black Sabbath fan at the heart of the biggest piano trio in the world! – somehow Berglund escaped as the lightweight of the trio.

Yet Berglund was the emotional beat of EST, the big kid with all those effects pedals to play with, who frolicked at the heart of this extraordinary group which had the lightest touch, yet played the saddest tunes, which had the most lyrical feel yet also plumbed the darker depths.

Grieving, the psychologists and psychotherapists will tell you, can take a year to kick in, let alone for its healing work to begin. Yet barely 18 months after Svensson’s death, Berglund is relishing the release of his debut album as leader and composer, the eponymously entitled Dan Berglund’s Tonbruket.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #138 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE copy of the latest Portico Quartet CD 'Isla'.