Ewan Svensson, since more than 30 years considered by many to be one of Sweden´s foremost and interesting jazz guitarists, has been both a member and leader of a succession of many jazz groups since the end of the 70´s. Except for jazz he has played in almost every musical genre. He has played the guitar since the age of 10 and at the age og 12 he got his first electric guitar. At that time he began playing in different pop&rock, and later, bluesbands as well as in proffesional dance-bands for some years. From being self-taught he applied for Music Conservatory in 1975 where he studied both classical and afro-american music for 4 years. At that time his interest for jazzmusic grew stronger and he also began writing original compositions. He graduated as pedagogue of jazzimprovisation as well as music teacher.He has played, and still does, as sideman in a raw of groups but mainly he has concentrated on his own music and projects. In 1983 he formed his first group under his own name. It started out as a trio but grew to a quartet – Ewan Svensson Quartet which since then has existed in different constellations, toured regularly and made several records which have all been well received.
In 1987 it was time to put together a new trio, then for the purpose of accompanying the world-famous Polish saxophonist Zbigniew Namyslowski for a tour in Sweden. That collaboration continued for several years with tours to clubs, festivals and radio and TV engagements in different parts of Europe.
In 1984 he started Falkenberg Jazz&Bluesförening and in 1989 Falkenberg Jazz Festival was founded and ever since then Ewan has been the artistic director of the festival that in 2018
celebrated the 30th edition.
1989 once again a new trio started with Palle Danielsson -bass and Magnus Gran – drums.
In 1993 Danielsson was replaced by Yasuhito Mori and since then the trio has had the same members. In 1995 Ewan started a Jazzcourse and every summer since then he teach one week jazzimprovisation together with some of the best jazzmusicians in Sweden.
Records with ES-compositions:
1989 FIRST FLIGHT – Crystal Eagle (Dragon Records)
1990 STRING (String guitarduo)
1991 PRESENT DIRECTIONS – Ewan Svensson Trio (Dragon Records)
1993 REFLECTIONS – Ewan Svensson Quartet (Dragon Records)
1995 NEXT STEP – Ewan Svensson Quartet (Dragon Records)
1996 STREAMS – Ewan Svensson Trio (Dragon Records)
1998 FLYING CARPET – Ulf Andersson Band (Four leaf Clover)
2000 MEETING – ESQ & Ginestra String Quartet (Dragon Records)
2001 FIGURES – Ewan Svensson Trio (Dragon Records)
2004 JUST LIVE TO TELL THE TALE – Ewan Svensson New Quartet (Spice of Life)
2005 LIGHT&SHADE – Ewan Svensson Quartet feat. vocalist Linda Pettersson (Nocturne)
2009 THE SUNFLOWER – Hannah & Acoustic 3 (ESM-Rec)
2010 MOMENTS PASSED – Ewan Svensson Trio plays standards (Dragon Records)
2010 SUNRISE ON THE MOON – Ewan Svensson Trio feat. Linda Pettersson – vocal and Antoine Herve´- piano. (Dragon Rec.)
2012 SOME FAVORITE THINGS – Two Generations, Ewan & Hannah Svensson (Dragon Records)
2015 FOR YOU – Two Generations (Dragon Records)
2017 SOMETIME AGO – Ewan Svensson solo (ESMCD)
2019 PLACES AND DREAMS – Hannah Svensson Group (Nilento/Naxos )
2021 CONVERSATIONS – Ewan Svensson solo (ESMCD)
2023 ONE DAY IN MARCH – Ewan Svensson Trio (ESMCD)
ES has performed mostly in Europe but also in Japan, Brasil and USA. He has played with the most prominent Swedish jazz musicians as well as international artists like:
Art Farmer, Bob Berg, Clark Terry, Scott Hamilton, Johnny Griffin, Ken Peplowski, Toots Thielemans, Larry Willis, Randy Brecker, toured with Kenny Wheeler, Maria Schneider, Georgie Fame a.o.
In 1999 he was asked to write and arrange music for his quartet and a classical string-quartet which resulted in the cross-over project called MEETING withtours, Radio&TV and partially a new audience.
At the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm Ewan Svensson received the pedagog-award for 2003 from His Majesty the King. For ”important work within the music pedagogue area ”. The individual motivation was: ”for Ewan´s remarkable work with teaching improvisation where his students developes both personally and within the group, parallell. Ewan is also, through his own professional work as a jazzmusician, a great source of inspiration for his students”.In 2004 it was 20 years since the first edition of ESQ and he put together a new quartet with the same setting, guitar-piano-bass-drums feat. the great French pianist Antoine Herve. The CD JUST LIVE TO TELL THE TALE was recorded for the Japanese label ”Spice of Life” and was released in Japan in March 2005.
In January 2005 another CD was recorded with ESQ and Linda Pettersson. The music is all ES-originals with lyrics by Dave Castle. It is called LIGHT&SHADE and the group performed a lot in Sweden as well as France and also had a great succes in Japan in 2006.
In 2007 ES received 2 different awards. In July a stipendium from the biggest folk-song-festival in Sweden, ”Hwitan´s Visfestival” and in December he received Falkenberg City Cultural-prize for 2007.
From 2007 and forward Ewan has a.o. been playing a lot with his daughter Hannah, vocalist, in a band called Acoustic 3. They released the cd The Sunflower in 2009 and together they did 60-70 concerts/year.
In 2011 They started the duo Two Generations and they have, sofar, released the records Some Favorite Things (2012) and For You (2015)
2013-14 Ewan play as a sideman in Janne ”Loffe” Carlsson & Friends. He also started Ulf Andersson New Quartet together with saxophonist Ulf Andersson.
Another project started in the summer 2015 and was a real ”dreamteam” called
Ewan Svensson Project feat. Diana Torto, (It)- John Taylor (UK)- Mads Vinding (DK)- Anders Kjellberg (S). (Tragically, John passed away just 2 weeks before the first concert at Ystad Jazz Festival, but was replaced by pianist Stefano Battaglia (It.)
In 2016 he played a.o. with the great Randy Brecker at Falkenberg Jazz Festival.
2017 released his soloalbum Sometime Ago that got great rewievs. A.o. tour in Italy with the Italian singer Elisa Marangon Band. He also toured w/ Two Generations a tribute to Ella F & Joe Pass.
2018 tours in Sweden, Denmark. London Jazz Festival a.o. Writing bigband-arrangements on original tunes.
2019 Recording new cd ”Places and Dreams” w/Hannah Svensson Group, release-tours in Sweden, Festivals in Sweden. Teaching on Jazzcourse.
Pandemic year 2020, preparing new solo record a.o.
2021 Recording a new solo-album plus another recording with Hannah Svensson Group.
2022 Playing once again with Randy Brecker in Falkenberg. Touring.
2023 Recording and Release of new trio-cd ”One day in March”. Release of ”The Other Way Around”
with Hannah Svensson Group