Into The Blue

About The Composition

The composition “Into The Blue” was written to honor the late Esbjörn Svensson. Esbjörn Svensson, and specifically his trio (EST), had a huge impact on me in my formative years as a musician and composer.

Sometimes compositions take lots of time to get right: days, weeks or even months. However, “Into The Blue” was composed in less than an hour immiedietlty after finishing the documentary of Esbjörn Svensson. The full documentary is hosted here on youtube.

The title of the composition “Into The Blue” is inspired by two points of the documentary mentioned above. The first, Esbjörn referred to the unknown feeling of exploring sounds on stage and improvising with his EST as journeying “Into The Blue”. I like to think this composition invites it’s performers to enter this headspace and encourage interaction through it’s simplistic form.

The second point of inspiration for this composition came from Esbjörn love of water. He would always dive into water whenever he could in between gigs. Really, the end of the documentary when Esbjörn’s widow expresses some sort of happiness that is was in water where Esbjörn died really emotionally moved me. The trauma she must have gone through when her husband suddenly passed and the growth she must have had to be able to speak so warmly of her late husband’s death moved me to tears. As a married man with children, I can only imagine the hardship they went through with Esbjörn’s sudden passing.

On a personal note, I managed to hold back my tears after watching the documentary just long enough to compose “Into The Blue”, but immediately after finishing this composition, I could not stop crying for several hours. This

It is my philosophy that any activity that is worth while doing has an element of danger. But through the joy that is derived from that activity, the danger is justified. I like to believe that the joy Esbjörn derived from Scuba diving justified his untimely death, but I still find it sad to live in a world devoid of such a unique musician.

Rest in peace, Mr. Svensson