Nils Landgren was born in 1956 and grew up with the music of his father, a jazz cornetist, and the church music of his grandfather, a pastor. He never lost his strong affinity for his own musical heritage.

Esbjörn Svensson, born in 1964, didn’t want to play folk music at first. At home with the music of Chopin, Ellington, or disco-pop groups such as The Sweet, the pianist had first found his place in the competitive music scene in Sweden. His trio was a success and in his homeland, he was voted Jazz Musician Of The Year in 1995 and 1996. The first sprinkling of jobs became a steady flow. Svensson proved himself in the bands of his friend Nils Landgren. The music was about funk and soul, occasionally pop and, in the main, classic jazz. But not folklore.

It was through the influence of Landgren and Svensson’s former teacher Bengt-Arne Wallin, who recorded the landmark album ‘Old Folklore In Swedish Modern’ back in 1962, that Svensson and Landgren were inspired to make a duo album centred around folk songs. In August 1997, both went into the studio and, with only trombone and piano, recorded ‘Swedish Folk Modern’. Their improvised treatments of the classic songs of the folk culture not only impressed the public; it brought praise from the press. Svensson and Landgren had created more than just a few impressions in duo. Discarding any sort of large conceptual superstructure, they had continued what Jan Johansson’s Jazz på Svenska and Bengt-Arne Wallin had begun in the early Sixties and what has since become a major force within the inner workings of European jazz.

The time after ‘Swedish Folk Modern’ was hectic and exciting. Nils Landgren’s Funk Unit advanced to the position of a celebrated festival act. Svensson’s own trio, E.S.T., expanded beyond Scandinavia’s borders, where the band’s fortunes skyrocketed. Inundated with jobs, the musicians finally found the time to once again get together, in December 1999 in Oslo’s Rainbow Studio. It would be a meeting full of exceptional jazz energy. Even more than the first time, they would rely on the force of reduction. Moods would be suggested, left open. Melodies worked out in simple clarity. Delicate variations supplemented and amplified both the original and traditional motifs of the central musical im- pressions. ‘Layers Of Light’ is an affair of the hearts of two artists who went back to their roots. That makes their music truthful, direct and authentic in a wondrous way.