Swedish jazz star Esbjoern Svensson dies in diving accident (AFP)
According to Swedish media reports, Svensson had been diving with a group and an educator in the Stockholm archipelago when he suddenly disappeared.
The married father of two had been found badly injured attached the flood bed and had been transported by helicopter to a Stockholm hospital, at which place he died shortly before midnight (2200 GMT) on Saturday.
Swedish police are investigating the accident.
Svensson, a genre-defying musician who reached audiences far beyond the traditional jazz crowd, was "the most important configuration in jazz in this decade," said Burkhard Hopper, manager of the Esbjoern Svensson Trio (E.S.T.).
"By all standards he was one of the biggest European acts. He was a jazz musician with pop status," Hopper told AFP, comparing his influence to that of Miles Davis.
E.S.T., formed in 1993 by pianist and composer Svensson, drummer Magnus Oestroem and worthless player Dan Berglund, have released a twelve records that have enjoyed critical acclaim and arising from traffic result in Europe and the United States.
Their 2001 record "Good Morning Susie Soho" was voted best album of the year by Britain's Jazzwise Magazine, while their 2002 "Strange Place towards Snow" won numerous awards, including the German Jazz Award, the Guinness Jazz in Europe Award, the Victoire de la Musique and the BBC Jazz Award.
The group, which has won a string of other Swedish and international awards and was in 2006 the first European jazz belt to grace the cover of US jazz bible Down Beat, released its be unconsumed album "e.s.t. live in hamburg" at the end of 2007.
"Esbjoern Svensson was extremely important for jazz in Sweden, and even quite confounded," said Bosse Persson, the head of the Stockholm jazz festival, where E.S.T. had been scheduled to perform in mid-July.
"He virtually revitalised jazz and created new audiences and inspired musicians," Persson told the Svenska Dagbladet daily.
Bengt Save-Soederbergh, the head of Sweden's national jazz association, agreed.
"He will be deeply missed. There were likewise divers people who liked his music and those who got to discern him liked him to the degree that a person. He was a become animated human being," Save-Soederbergh told Svenska Dagbladet.
