2000 · Album
Good Morning Susie Soho
Sony BMG · Released: September 2000 · Peak chart position: No. 15, Swedish Sverigetopplistan
Darkly lyrical and fiercely now
By 2000, Svensson had found his voice—and it was unmistakably his own.
Good Morning Susie Soho arrives at a pivotal moment in Esbjörn Svensson Trio's arc. By this point, the group had moved beyond early exploration into something harder to pin down: a sound that belonged entirely to itself. This album is where the trio's identity crystallizes—not a debut statement, but something more consequential. A group at the height of its early powers, knowing exactly what it wants to say.
What distinguishes the album is its refusal to sit comfortably in any existing pocket. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, and Jazzwise named it Album of the Year for 2000—recognition that mattered at the time. Stuart Nicholson of JazzTimes captured something essential in describing the music as "darkly lyrical and fiercely contemporary." The trio wrote nearly everything themselves, which matters. This is their own material, their own sensibility. The sole exception, "The Face of Love," carries a songwriting credit spanning Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, David Robbins, and Tim Robbins—an outlier that points toward the group's openness to unexpected sources.
The album reached No. 15 on the Swedish charts, which is respectable without being massive. This wasn't a commercial breakthrough, but it solidified something that had been building: a European jazz trio with genuine reach and critical credibility. If you're discovering this group, Good Morning Susie Soho is the right place to enter. It's the moment when everything clicks.
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